Category: Corona Virus

The number of Wisconsiniteshospitalized due to COVID-19 hasbeen on the rise in recent weeks.

More than 400 patients statewide werehospitalizedwith coronavirus as of Wednesday morning, according to the Wisconsin Hospital Association and state health officials. Fewer than 300 were hospitalized in early May.

The latestnumber 413 currently hospitalized coronavirus patients was down slightly from 422 on Tuesday.

But an additional 335 people are hospitalized while awaiting coronavirus test results, surpassing the previous high of 295, in early April.

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Mostof theCOVID-19 patients in the state are in southeastern Wisconsin, which on Wednesday reported 290 people arehospitalized with coronavirus.

Ben Weston, director of medical services in the Milwaukee CountyOffice of Emergency Management, noted anupward trend in COVID-19 hospitalizations in Milwaukee County over the past two weeks, from 146 on May 14 to 205 on Tuesday,

The figure dropped to 180 on Wednesday, but it's a concerning trend overall, he said.

"If tomorrow we see we're right back up to 200 and we keep creeping up, then I think we got to step back and say, what's going on?"he said.

The increasing hospitalizations come as Wisconsin on Wednesday reported its largest single-day increases in coronavirus deaths, cases and tests. After the state countincreased by just 10 between Sunday and Tuesday, 22 deaths were reported Wednesday, bringing the total to 539. The previous single-day high was 19.

Newly confirmed cases totaled 599 in Wisconsin, breaking the state's record of 528 set a week earlier.

Thetroubling record-setting coronavirus numbers were reported two weeks after the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down Gov. Tony Evers' stay-at home order.

State health officials on Wednesday said they couldn't say whether the new COVID-19 cases are linked to the court's decision to overturn the order.

"I think we would not feel confident saying that on the two-week anniversary, we are attributing increases to the lifting of Safer at Home, but we certainly will continue to track the data," Andrea Palm, secretary of the state Department of Health Services, told reporters.

She urged people to maintain physical distancing to "keep the curve flat, to help continue to protect the people of this state, particularly those that are most vulnerable."

"We obviously are concerned about outbreaks and hot spots around the state. We are concerned about the increase the slight increase in hospitalizations that we're seeing in some parts of the state," Palm said.

While state health officials were hesitant to link the newcases to any one specific cause or event, they noted how the highly contagious virus is spread.

"All 599 cases that were diagnosed today resulted from a person being in close contact with another person who had the infection," saidRyan Westergaard, the chief medical officer at the Department of Health Services. "And that's the only thing we can say with certainty."

Researchers said it is especially difficult to linkcases to one single event now that Wisconsin is nearly fully reopened, and thephased approach outlined under Gov. Tony Evers' Safer at Home order meant to allow health officials to track how, where and why cases were rising is out the window.

Now, its going to be much harder to understand if we do see a surge in cases, what was the thing that really contributed the most to that happening, said Amanda Simanek, an associate professor of epidemiology in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukees Zilber School of Public Health.

Oguzhan Alagoz, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an infectious disease modeling expert, said the increases Wisconsin is seeing are likely driven by many factors, like increased testing availability.

Palm also noted that thestate reported 10,330 new test results Wednesday, the first time it had surpassed 10,000 tests reported in a day.

Of those tests, 5.8% were positive down from 8% on May 20.

People are alsointeracting and moving about more and have been since before the state order was lifted, according to daily cellphone mobility data that showed people were apparently developing quarantine fatigue.

Westonsaid even he gets the sense sometimes that the pandemic is coming to an end and things are returning to normal.

"And then we snap back to reality and unfortunately COVID hasn't gone anywhere,"he said. "It's still here. It's just as much, if not probably more, here than it was back when we had stay-at-home orders. All that's changed is the orders and the law that surrounds it."

And as people increasingly venture out of their homes, there's no reason to think that there won't be increased spread of the virus, increased hospitalizations and, to some degree, increased deaths, he said.

Simanek andAlagoz agreed, noting that how cautious people remain in their interactions will play a major role in how large an increase Wisconsin could see. While the state may not see one major spike, localized clusters of cases are a big concern.

It wont necessarily be one thing, Simanek said. You could have outbreaks that are tied to a certain group gathering or outbreaks that are tied to a certain physical location, like we have seenhappen across the U.S.

Alagoz said early mobility data shows people are taking precautions despite moving more.

With current levels of movement, if people didnt wear masks, if people were behaving as they were pre-March 10, believe me, we would have seen a double, triple, exponential increase in the number of cases, Alagoz said.

Without the order, Alagoz and other experts say, those precautions wearingmasks, maintainingsocial distance, and limitinginteractions to small, consistent groups will determine how large the increase in cases will be.

Contact Mary Spicuzzaat (414) 224-2324 ormary.spicuzza@jrn.com. Followheron Twitter at @MSpicuzzaMJS.

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The number of Wisconsinites hospitalized for coronavirus is growing, one reminder that coronavirus 'hasn't gone anywhere' - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Over the past month, Hong Kong has averaged one new confirmed coronavirus case a day.

Taiwan has reported only one case in the past three weeks. The situation is similar in Vietnam. Although the number of coronavirus cases continues to grow globally, there are places that have managed to successfully control COVID-19.

New Zealand's triumph

Perhaps the greatest success story is New Zealand, which has stopped local transmission and has a plan to completely eliminate the virus from its territory.

"The lesson is that it can be done," says Siouxsie Wiles, an associate professor of microbiology in New Zealand. "Obviously, the longer you leave it, and the more cases there are, the harder it becomes. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try."

Wiles heads up the Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab at the University of Auckland. Much of her work focuses on antibiotic resistance and infectious diseases. When the coronavirus hit, she got involved in communication efforts in New Zealand to help explain the virus, including by using a popular cartoon.

But it wasn't just scientists who led the charge. Wiles and many other New Zealanders give much of the credit for their country's success to the swift and decisive leadership of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in March.

Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, briefs the media on COVID-19. She issued a call for New Zealanders to protect one another from the health threat. Mark Mitchell/Pool/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, briefs the media on COVID-19. She issued a call for New Zealanders to protect one another from the health threat.

"Our prime minister made the decision that she did not want what was happening in Italy to happen in New Zealand," Wiles says. In mid-March, as cases were exploding in Italy and Spain, Ardern ordered anyone entering New Zealand into quarantine. At that point, the country had confirmed just six cases. A few days later, on March 19, Ardern shut down travel to the country, essentially banning all foreigners from entering the island nation of 4.8 million.

She took to the national airwaves to explain a four-stage lockdown system that New Zealand would use to confront the health crisis. "I'm speaking to all New Zealanders today to give you as much certainty and clarity as we can as we fight COVID-19," she said in a nationally televised address on March 21.

Ardern called the threat "unprecedented," but she was calm and reassuring. "Here's how we'll know what to do and when," she said as she laid out plans to shut down schools, most businesses and domestic travel.

Wiles at the University of Auckland says that the prime minister did something quite interesting, "which was that unlike many other countries, she never put us on a war footing."

So Ardern's speeches weren't about attacking an invisible enemy as many world leaders would say.

Instead she called on New Zealanders to confront this crisis by protecting their fellow citizens.

"She talked over and over about us being a team of 5 million and that we all do our part to break these chains of transmission and to eliminate the virus," Wiles says. "I think that has been one of the really crucial things everybody knowing how they had to behave and that they were behaving for the good of everybody."

Wiles heard the prime minister's calls for everyone to come together so many times that she refers to it as Ardern doing her "united thing."

New Zealand is now reopening most businesses and is even talking about complete elimination of the coronavirus from its territory.

As of late May, New Zealand had had roughly 1,500 cases and fewer than two dozen deaths from COVID-19.

Outstanding in Asia

Several nations in Asia have had far larger outbreaks but have managed to bring the disease under control.

For example, South Korea has reported more than 11,000 cases. In late February and early March, South Korea was reporting about 750 new cases a day. Now the country is down to an average just a few dozen per day.

Gi-Wook Shin, the head of Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, says the most successful countries all did some things similar to New Zealand.

"There are some common threads," Shin says. One is very swift and effective action by the state against the outbreak.

Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam and South Korea all either banned incoming visitors early in the outbreak or placed them in two-week quarantines. South Korea quickly developed its own testing system.

Many countries in the Asia-Pacific region have experience with the central government being involved in business development, particularly technology development. So they know how to harness their manufacturing and research hubs to attack particular problems. Shin says the faith in government in these countries and the experience of having the state lead economic development in the past helped these countries respond faster to the pandemic.

"In those countries in Asia, absolutely, they believe that the state, the central government, is responsible for intervening and then solving this problem," Shin says.

Another clear trait of the successful responses against COVID-19 is that they've all been "apolitical." The efforts haven't been framed as coming from one political party or another but rather as efforts for the good of everyone.

The successful Asian countries had national plans, and the leaders articulated them to their people.

"If you look at like Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam or maybe even Hong Kong," Shin says. "The message from the central government was very clear, very straightforward, very coherent and, I think, very effective."

Angela Merkel's TV strategy

Countries in other parts of the world have also managed, for various reasons, to tame COVID-19.

Many nations in the Caribbean have corralled the virus after it arrived on their shores. In addition, Costa Rica, Iceland and Rwanda have also reduced spread to extremely low levels. Mauritius has only reported two cases since April.

In Europe, Germany is still dealing with hundreds of cases a day, but it brought transmission down faster and with far fewer deaths than most other countries in Europe. On March 18, German Chancellor Angela Merkel did something that she had never done before while in office. She took to the airwaves and gave a televised national address. The topic: explaining her plan for how to tackle the coronavirus outbreak. "It is serious," Merkel said of the virus. "Take it seriously."

Jana Puglierin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, says Merkel going on TV to give a speech in a crisis was very unusual for her.

"She has never done that in any of the previous crises, not in the migration crisis, not during the eurozone crisis. So this was really a first for her," Puglierin says.

As a public speaker, Merkel has a reputation as being cold.

"But in this speech, she really managed to connect with the people," Puglierin says. Merkel brought Germans on board to fight the outbreak. She told them that the only way to overcome this crisis was for every German to accept it as their own responsibility to reduce the spread of the virus. "She convinced them that this was necessary," Puglierin says.

Merkel added that since the end of World War II and national reunification, there has been no other challenge that depends as strongly on Germans working together.

"She was very human, very approachable, very transparent and very clear in her message," Puglierin says. And it also helped that Merkel is a scientist, with a doctorate in quantum chemistry. She understood the science behind the outbreak. "And she has this tremendous gift of explaining everything that is related to that virus in a very clear and understandable way for ordinary citizens."

Germany is still dealing with coronavirus transmission but has brought its daily case numbers down significantly. Parts of the country are starting to reopen. Things aren't perfect. Some of the reopening is fairly chaotic. Students are going back to school at different times.

"My kids, for example," Puglierin says. "One goes to school once before the summer break starts. The other goes every third day, and the neighbor kid goes every day. So that adds to a lot of frustration."

But there's a feeling that things are moving in the right direction. Case numbers in Germany are going down. Millions of students are returning to school. That's the kind of progress that so many people around the world desperately want to see.

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Some Countries Have Brought New Cases Down To Nearly Zero. How Did They Do It? - NPR

BRUSSELS For decades, even when the 2008 financial crisis threatened to blow the bloc apart, the European Unions wealthier nations resisted the notion of collective debt. But the coronavirus has so fundamentally damaged the blocs economy that it is now forcing European leaders to consider the sort of unified and sweeping response once thought unworkable.

The European Commission, the blocs executive branch, on Wednesday proposed that it raise 750 billion euros, or $826 billion, on behalf of all members to finance their recovery from the economic collapse brought on by the virus, the worst crisis in the history of the European Union.

The plan, which still requires approval from the 27 national leaders and their parliaments, would be the first time that the bloc raised large amounts of common debt in capital markets, taking the E.U. one step closer to a shared budget, potentially paid for through common taxes.

For those reasons, the proposal had all the hallmarks of a historic moment for the E.U., vesting greater authority in Brussels in ways that more closely than ever resembled a central government.

This is about all of us and it is way bigger than any one of us, Ursula von der Leyen, the commission president, told European Parliament members in a speech in Brussels. This is Europes moment.

At another moment one without a calamitous recession looming the proposal would probably have been dead on arrival and antagonized the populists and nationalists who oppose the gathering power of Brussels. But the urgent need for a powerful response to the virus has muted much of the appeal of that message, at least for now.

There is little question that Europes recovery will be difficult and cost trillions, with some of its economies set to shrink by as much as 10 percent this year. The friction between China and the United States also poses a major challenge for a bloc that trades heavily with both.

Until now, the European Central Bank had been propping up the economy by sweeping up bonds by member states at low cost to ensure money keeps flowing in to finance stimulus efforts. But the economic crisis is so large that anything less than a bold response from European Union leaders risked inviting another kind of crisis one of legitimacy.

With Britain gone, the calamity brought on by the virus forced Germany and France, the blocs two strongest countries that often find themselves at loggerheads, to step up in a rare display of joint leadership, paving the way for the commissions proposal.

Even so, the plan is bound to be watered down in the weeks and months ahead. The proposal requires unanimous backing by member states, and a handful of the richer and less affected ones, such as the Netherlands and Denmark, consider joint borrowing and grant distribution to be unfair.

We need to take everyones interests into account and there are very different interest groups: the southern countries, who fundamentally always want more; the East Europeans, who have an interest in preventing everything from flowing south; and, of course, those who have to pay for it all, the net payers, Sebastian Kurz, the Austrian chancellor, who opposes parts of the commissions proposal, told Politico on Wednesday.

But the countries hardest hit by the virus, namely Italy and Spain, are also too big and too central to the European Unions ambitions to let fail. For now the plan not only suggested large-scale joint borrowing, but also that most of the money raised be distributed in the form of grants, or free cash.

The 750 billion raised would be split in two pots, the commission said. One would include 500 billion to be distributed as grants to all countries based on their recovery needs, with Italy getting the biggest slice and Spain the second biggest. This means the money would be free, with no repayment demanded and no strings attached, and would not count toward national debt levels.

Another pot of 250 billion would be made available in the form of loans to countries that apply for them, coming with more scrutiny and conditions, and would be added to a countrys debt load.

At the heart of the commissions plan is the idea of using some of its own budget to issue bonds, a move its made only a handful of times for smaller amounts in the past. The institution, which has a Triple-A rating, the best possible, from ratings agencies, said it could levy its own taxes to repay those bonds, which will have a maximum 30-year maturity.

The European Commission itself will be greatly empowered if its proposal goes through, not only because it will be able to issue bonds in the markets, but also because any powers to raise taxes directly will give it more of the semblance of a federal government, which it currently lacks, as it depends almost entirely on member state contributions for its budget.

If members dont grant the commission powers to raise its own taxes directly to repay the bonds, officials said they would need to pay bigger contributions into its budget, or see some of the programs it funds shrink or die to free up funds instead.

Some see this move as a great step forward in deepening the economic binds that tie European Union members and bringing them closer to a United States of Europe. But experts warned that, while important, this is not a leap into mutualized debt, like in the United States.

We dont become a federal Europe, however the proposal is a big deal in terms of the architecture of the European Union, said Maria Demertzis of the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel. If Europe is considering to issue common debt and to raise taxes to back this debt up, then were talking about a big deal.

But real debt mutualization would see Germany guaranteeing Italys debt, for example, said Mujtaba Rahman, who heads the Europe practice at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy.

Von der Leyens announcement today is a very important step, but only one on what will prove a long and windy road toward genuine debt mutualization in the European Union, Mr. Rahman said.

Berlin would demand a veto over Italian budgetary choices as the quid pro quo, and the European Union is nowhere near mature enough politically for such a system just yet, he added.

The proposal pushed forward Wednesday sidesteps some of those stickier issues by making the European Commission the guarantor of any debt, rather than individual nations, something resisted in Germany and elsewhere and legally unacceptable under the current setup of the bloc.

But both Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France recognized that allowing some E.U. countries to recover faster and stronger would only deepen inequalities in the bloc, hampering the way it trades and operates internally.

Ms. von der Leyen, too, stressed that its crucial for the recovery to be even across the bloc.

Most of the onus on financing the recovery is still falling on national governments, and will continue to, even if the commission proposal is endorsed. Germany and other wealthy countries have their own ample funds to draw from to quickly prop up their economies and dont need European Union funding.

Germany has deployed more than a trillion euros to support its economy, even cutting checks to out-of-work freelancers and bailing out and renationalizing a share of its national flag carrier, Lufthansa.

But other nations, in particular those with fewer resources or still hobbling from the last crisis, need European Union funding more as they face depleted coffers and expensive borrowing in markets.

The European Commission also made 540 billion available earlier in the crisis for members to finance unemployment benefits, small businesses and the rebuilding of their health care systems.

A new president, on the job for less than a year and confronted with the worst recession in the European Unions history, Ms. von der Leyen has been under considerable pressure to propose an ambitious plan to support the blocs recovery.

The rare Franco-German proposal, floated last week, gave Ms. von der Leyen the top backing she needed, but a Dutch diplomat swiftly noted Wednesday that her plan would still meet resistance in the continents wealthy north, paving the road for fraught negotiations among leaders starting next month.

Charles Michel, the president of the European Council who presides over the 27 leaders meetings, said there should be a session on June 19 to tackle the proposal, urging the heads of government to support Ms. von der Leyens pitch and quickly deploy this money where its needed.

That sense of urgency may not be shared by all and the potential for a lengthy and messy approval process is a key problem with the Commissions proposals, experts said.

Its single biggest weakness is the fact that real money will only begin to flow where its needed most next year, raising a question about the economic picture in the second half of this year, Mr. Rahman said.

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A 750 Billion Coronavirus Recovery Plan Thrusts Europe Into a New Frontier - The New York Times

Michael Zamora and Ben de la Cruz/NPR YouTube

Scientists have learned a great deal about how the novel coronavirus spreads. But one of the mysteries they're still trying to untangle is where the virus, known as SARS-CoV-2, came from in the first place. Scientific evidence points overwhelmingly to wildlife and to bats as the most likely origin point.

Bats are critically important for pollinating flowers and dispersing seeds. They catch bugs, the same ones that bite us and eat some of our crops. But bats also harbor some of the toughest known zoonotic diseases those caused by germs that spread between animals and people.

The rabies virus, the Marburg virus, the Hendra and Nipah viruses all find a natural reservoir in bats, meaning those viruses can live in bats without harming them. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa was traced to a bat colony. The SARS virus originates in bats, along with other coronaviruses. And now, SARS-CoV-2 is linked to bats too. The virus has a 96% genetic similarity to coronavirus samples previously found in bats.

Globally, zoonotic diseases have been on the rise for decades. The CDC estimates that six out of ten infectious diseases in people come from animals. Increased human interactions with animals through land development that destroys habitat, agricultural practices and livestock and wildlife trade have created a perfect storm for emerging diseases to appear throughout the world, pathogens both previously known and completely novel.

There is not enough genetic evidence to know how precisely this particular coronavirus transmitted from animals (likely bats) to humans, and whether an intermediate animal was involved in the chain of transmission. Further genetic testing and evidence is needed to fully know where this coronavirus came from. The work of virus hunting of tracking an outbreak to its origin point can take years. The 2003 outbreak of SARS, for instance, took a decade of detective work, sampling the feces, urine, or blood of thousands of horseshoe bats across China until a match was found.

Read this article:

VIDEO: Virus Hunters Investigate The Source Of The Novel Coronavirus : Goats and Soda - NPR

Just 40% of self-identified GOPers in newly released Gallup data said that the coronavirus' mortality rate was higher than that of seasonal flu, which kills roughly 1 out of every 1,000 people who get it. That number is largely unchanged from a mid-March Gallup survey that showed 42% of Republicans believing that coronavirus is deadlier than the flu.

Those numbers stand in stark contrast to the 9 in 10 Democrats who told Gallup that coronavirus is killing more Americans than the flu and the two-thirds of independents who said the same.

It's also in stark contrast to the known facts regarding coronavirus' mortality rate.

"The crude case fatality rates, covering people who have a Covid-19 diagnosis, have been about 6 percent globally as well as in the United States. But when all the serological data is compiled and analyzed, the fatality rate among people who have been infected could be less than 1 percent."

So, why do so many Republicans simply not buy it?

"Beyond partisan affiliation and political ideology, news diet is a powerful predictor of how Americans view the lethality of the coronavirus. For example, the likelihood that a hypothetical politically moderate independent with a conservative news diet would incorrectly answer this question increased four percentage points between mid-March to mid-April, compared with decreases of seven points for the same individual with a mixed news diet and 19 points with a liberal news diet."

What the Gallup numbers affirm is that facts are under assault in this country. And in a situation like this global pandemic has created, ignorance of facts (or ignoring them) can get people killed.

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Most Republicans *still* don't think coronavirus is more deadly than the flu - CNN

People pray inside St. Michael's Church on Tuesday in Brooklyn. Stephanie Keith/Getty Images hide caption

People pray inside St. Michael's Church on Tuesday in Brooklyn.

On this broadcast of The National Conversation, we'll reflect on experiences from Asian American listeners who have faced racism and discrimination during the pandemic. We'll also answer your questions about religious practices, health insurance and the future of work.

Excerpt from:

Answering Your Coronavirus Questions: 100000 Deaths, Religion And The Future Of Work - NPR

While several vaccine developers have issued statements looking into the future -- setting possible timetables for study completion and vaccine manufacturing -- the ethicists and doctors say one group in particular stands out as being the most aggressive in painting the rosiest picture: the University of Oxford in England.

Oxford has recently walked back some of its optimism, but for months, it set a tone that its vaccine was the most promising, without any solid evidence that this was based in fact.

First, in a field fraught with potential failure, two Oxford researchers stated that they're "80% confident" that the vaccine will work, and that they might be able to complete large-scale clinical trials in just six weeks, a fraction of what some other vaccine companies estimate they can do.

Second, some experts have accused Oxford scientists of spinning results of their vaccine research in monkeys to make the vaccine look more powerful than it is, which Oxford denies.

Third, one leader in the Oxford team has gone so far as to denigrate other teams trying to get a Covid vaccine on the market, calling their technology "weird" and labeling it as merely "noise." Such name-calling is highly unusual and aggressive among scientists.

Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said he "sat straight up" when he heard one of the Oxford scientists talk about how well their vaccine is progressing.

"Some of us in the scientific community here in the US have been a little surprised at the sprightly competitiveness of some of the comments from our colleagues at Oxford. We don't usually see that in public pronouncements," said Schaffner, a longtime adviser to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We've been grumpy with our national political leaders about providing inaccurate information, and we should hold scientific leaders to those same standards."

Dr. Paul Offit, a University of Pennsylvania pediatrician who developed a vaccine for rotavirus, agrees.

"At this point, the Oxford researchers have no idea whether they have something or not," Offit said. "You just get so tired of this 'science by press release.' "

But one of the leaders of the Oxford research team says he and his colleagues are just being straightforward.

"We're going to be first to finish," said Dr. Adrian Hill, one of the lead Oxford researchers. "How can you criticize us for giving our honest opinion?"

On April 16, CNN's Erin Burnett pressed Hill on his predictions.

"Do you have any concern that you're being overly optimistic, that that just seems, for lack of a better word, too good to be true?" Burnett asked.

"We don't think so," Hill answered.

Weeks later, Hill would have to backtrack on his own optimism, warning against "over-promising" and ratcheting down his expectations of success.

Most vaccine efforts will fail

Five Chinese companies have vaccines in human trials. Oxford is the only one in Europe. Worldwide, there are 114 more candidates in pre-clinical trial stages.

Vaccine development is a risky business. Sometimes even ones that get to large-scale clinical trials fail.

Even so, scientists from various experimental vaccine teams have made public statements about their interim results.

On May 18, Massachusetts-based Moderna put out a press release declaring that results in eight human study subjects showed that its vaccine "was generally safe and well tolerated."

Moderna CEO Stphane Bancel referred to the results as "positive interim Phase 1 data" and that "the Moderna team continues to focus on moving as fast as safely possible to start our pivotal Phase 3 study in July."

Moderna's stock soared, and the company was criticized for announcing results on just eight study subjects when the data hadn't even been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal.

The Oxford scientists have voiced less caution, frequently appearing in the media and making public proclamations that theirs will likely be successful and first.

On April 11, lead researcher Sarah Gilbert told The Times of London that she was "80% confident" that the Oxford vaccine will work.

Her own colleague questioned that statement a few weeks later.

But Hill, the director of the Jenner Institute at Oxford, which specializes in vaccine development, dismissed Bell's comments.

"It's like asking me about a renal drug, asking John about a vaccine. It's not what he does. It's what Sarah does every day and has done for 25 years," Hill said.

Bell did not respond to CNN's multiple requests for comments.

On May 19, Hill told CNN he stood by Gilbert's estimate.

"We did not exaggerate anything. We're not backtracking at all from the 80%," he said.

The wisdom of Spider-Man

Inovio and Moderna have said they expect their large-scale clinical trials, known as Phase 3 trials, to last around six months. Pfizer hasn't given a timetable for its Phase 3 trial.

On May 19, Hill told CNN that his group is planning to start its Phase 3 trial sometime before July 1, and that they could finish by the end of the July, which means the trial would be between a month and six weeks long, although he thought August or September was more likely.

"I've not seen anyone wrap up a Phase 3 trial in a month to six weeks," said Dr. Saad Omer, a Yale University infectious disease expert who's done clinical trials on polio, pertussis and influenza vaccines. "We need to benchmark this against realistic expectations."

Hill said he thought it was important to benchmark his trial progress because "it has huge public policy implications" for officials who are trying to make rules about when to open up communities.

But Omer said that's exactly why it's important to be realistic about how long the vaccine development process will take.

"I buy that this is a pandemic and we may need to show progress and show steps, and I'm OK with making forecasts if decision makers want that, but do it with a level of uncertainty, because that's what's warranted," said Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health.

He said the issue isn't Oxford's specific vaccine technology -- he said they were "scientifically solid" -- but rather that unexpected events can happen during a vaccine trial.

One big stumbling block for any vaccine trial is that Covid-19 infection rates in many areas of the world are flattening out or declining. The point of Phase 3 is to vaccinate people and then see if they naturally become infected, and with lower rates of circulating virus, the study subjects are less likely to be exposed to the virus in the first place.

"Just because things have gone right does not mean the next steps will go exactly on time, and won't go sideways, even if eventually we'll get there," Omer said.

That's why he encourages humility in making any projections about reaching the finish line.

"As Spider-Man says, with great power comes great responsibility, and being responsible is not projecting things with more precision than the field and the history of vaccine development suggests," he added.

Oxford scientist insults other vaccine teams

Hill, the Oxford scientist, has several arguments about why he thinks his vaccine is more promising than the others currently in human clinical trials.

First, he cites his team's many years of research on the technology used in their Covid vaccine.

The Oxford vaccine uses what's called an adenovirus vector. Adenoviruses cause the common cold, but in this case, the adenoviruses are weakened and modified to deliver genetic material that codes for a protein from the novel coronavirus. The body then produces that protein and, ideally, develops an immune response to it.

Despite all this research, none of the Oxford vaccines has made it on the market, Hill said.

Still, Hill told CNN in the May 19 interview that his vaccine, plus one in China that also uses an adenovirus vector, are "the front runners" among the vaccines in clinical trials.

Hill then proceeded to disparage other teams' vaccines -- a highly unusual and aggressive move.

The four US vaccine candidates use a different technology -- or vaccine "platform" -- than Oxford.

Two of them, Moderna and Pfizer, use RNA vaccines, which inject a piece of genetic material from the novel coronavirus into human cells to stimulate immunity.

Hill described RNA vaccines as merely "noise from the new boys."

A Harvard University blog describes it differently.

Hill was particularly disparaging of Moderna, which he said has "weird and wonderful technology." When asked what he meant by "wonderful," Hill said, "I was being sarcastic."

"They've got an unproven technology," he said.

CNN asked Moderna for its response, as well as Pfizer.

"Our only competitors in this race are the virus and the clock. We are rooting for multiple vaccines to succeed because we believe no manufacturer can make enough doses for the planet," according to the Moderna statement.

"Our industry peers, the other pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as well as health authorities, have come together like never before. We're acutely aware that we are all on the same side, and COVID-19 and other diseases are the enemy," Pfizer spokeswoman Amy Rose wrote in an email to CNN.

Hill also took a jab at Inovio, a US vaccine maker in clinical trials, saying "they can't scale up to get into phase three," clinical trials.

Inovio's technology uses a brief electrical pulse to deliver plasmids, or small pieces of genetic information, into human cells. Inovio says those cells then produce the vaccine, which leads to an immune response.

Jeff Richardson, a spokesman for the company said that "our competition is the virus, not other companies. There needs to be three or four winners to vaccinate the world. Most likely, there will be a number of vaccines that make it, and that's a good thing."

As for the four Chinese companies in clinical trials with a potential Covid vaccine, Hill said "they have a problem."

For a vaccine clinical trial to be successful, there needs to be sufficiently high levels of the virus circulating in the community. If there isn't enough virus around, it will be impossible to tell if the vaccine protected the study subjects, or if they were just never exposed to the virus.

"There's no Covid left in China. They can't finish," Hill said.

There is still a bit of Covid left in China, with a few dozen cases left, according to the latest briefings by the nation's National Health Commission. While this is likely not enough for a full-scale clinical trial, the researchers could conduct trials in other countries where the vaccine is still circulating more widely.

Oxford not in 'slam dunk' territory

The Oxford scientists have sometimes tempered their positive statements with more cautious ones.

"Nobody can be absolutely sure it's possible. That's why we have to do trials. We have to find out. I think the prospects are very good, but it's clearly not completely certain," Gilbert answered.

But the US and British media have focused more on the positive statements, often writing glowing reports about the vaccine's progress.

A few weeks ago, a headline in a US newspaper story proclaimed that the "Oxford group leaps ahead" even though it's not clear there's a single front runner among the vaccines.

"Should be careful when talking about #COVID19 vaccine progress. As a vaccine researcher, I am cautiously optimistic; but we must be mindful of projecting too much confidence. We are not in slam dunk territory," he wrote.

Oxford's monkeys, in particular, have received attention.

BioRxiv.org is a pre-print server, meaning the articles have not been reviewed by other scientists and have not been published in the medical literature.

After the monkeys were vaccinated and then exposed to the virus, they were euthanized and examined for lung damage. According to the Oxford study, none of the vaccinated animals had signs of pneumonia or other lung problems, but two out of three unvaccinated monkeys did develop some degree of viral pneumonia.

"We were very excited by seeing that in the first try," he added.

But William Haseltine, a virologist and former professor at Harvard Medical School, said Hill was being "misleading."

"In this interview Hill is like a magician who distracts the audience with one shiny object to detract you from the fact that his accomplice is picking your pocket," Haseltine told CNN in an email.

Also, he said the monkeys had just as much viral RNA in their nasal secretions compared to the unvaccinated monkeys, an indication to him that the vaccine didn't work and the monkeys could possibly spread the virus to others.

Thirdly, Haseltine pointed to neutralizing antibodies. A vaccine should elicit high levels of antibodies capable of disabling the virus and preventing it from infecting human cells. Haseltine said the level of these antibodies in the monkeys who received the Oxford vaccine was "extremely low."

Haseltine told CNN that the monkey study on the Oxford vaccine was an "outright failure."

The Oxford scientists quickly wrote a statement rebutting Haseltine's article. They had been given the novel coronavirus directly into their noses -- called an intranasal challenge -- and so the presence of virus in the nasal swabs "may reflect use of a very high intranasal challenge dose greater than that transmitted in natural infections," according to the statement.

They also wrote that there were neutralizing antibodies present in all the monkeys who were vaccinated, but not in the unvaccinated monkeys.

"The comment by Haseltine appears to misunderstand the impressive efficacy of the [Oxford] vaccine in the non-human primate model," according to the statement.

Offit, the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, said he thinks it's not a deal breaker that the vaccinated monkeys got infected. People sometimes still get the flu when they get a flu vaccine, but they often get only mild symptoms. Children still can get rotavirus after getting his vaccine, but again, typically a milder version that's less life-threatening.

He said the fact that the monkeys did not develop pneumonia after receiving the Oxford vaccine is "encouraging," but he was not convinced that the Oxford vaccine would ultimately work, since vaccines that show signs of success in animals sometimes fail in humans.

"As vaccine researchers like to say, mice lie and monkeys exaggerate," Offit said.

Offit and others say they sometimes cringe when they hear Oxford scientists talk about their vaccine.

Bioethicist Alta Charo said sometimes scientists can become "overly optimistic" about their work, especially as they race to put an end to the pandemic.

"It is very easy to get caught up in the potential of a new medical product when early development and testing seem to show promise. It is very easy to believe in your own work," said Charo, a professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Art Caplan, a bioethicist at NYU Langone Health and CNN medical analyst, said it's especially important to be circumspect about vaccines, since so many people have lost trust in vaccines and are hesitant to vaccinate their children, or downright refuse to do so.

"The world is watching, and if you're puffing something up that's uncertain, that's really troubling," he said.

On Saturday, after months of rosy predictions, Hill deflated his predictions of success considerably and softened his competitive tone.

In that interview, Hill warned against "over-promising" and said that developing a vaccine is "not a race against the other guys. It's a race against the virus disappearing, and against time."

Offit said this was much more realistic.

"This tells you he's starting to back away from his original statements, as he's noticed the impracticality of his original statements," he said.

Offit has some advice for Covid vaccine developers: Be quiet.

"Now researchers can't wait to step out to the microphone -- and there are so many microphones out there -- to say, 'I've got it! This looks really good!' " Offit said.

When he and his team were developing the RotaTeq vaccine, he said they didn't speak to the media until they received final approval from the US Food and Drug Administration in 2006.

Today that vaccine saves hundreds of lives a day worldwide, Offit said, mostly children under the age of 2.

"When we discovered our rotavirus vaccine was safe in mice, we didn't say anything. When we finished our Phase one clinical trials, we didn't say anything. We just moved forward," he said.

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With big talk and hurled insults, the gloves come off in the race for the coronavirus vaccine - CNN

From the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. to the 100,000th death, every U.S. state and territory, except American Samoa, has lost a resident to the coronavirus pandemic.

Watch the day-by-day rise in reported deaths in this animated map.

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Graphic: See the U.S. coronavirus death toll hit 100,000 with this animated map - NBCNews.com

ASHEVILLE - With a budget deadline a month away the City Council is zeroing in on a $185 million spending plan.

The proposed operating budget represents a year-over-year decrease forced by declining taxes and other public revenues.

City Manager Debra Campbell proposed the austerity budget at a May 26 council meetingamid the economic fallout of the coronavirus. It includes no tax or fee increases.

The council is set to hold a public hearing on the proposalJune 9 with a final vote June 23. By state law local governments must pass balanced budgets by June 30.

City Manager Debra Campbell(Photo: Angeli Wright/awright@citizen-times.com)

"This is essentially a continuation budget," Campbell told the seven council members who attended through video links. "There are very, very limited service enhancements not because we don't want to enhance services, but we just cannot afford to do it. And it would be generally, considering what is happening in our community and country, not a good thing at this time."

- The current year's budget was expected to be $192 million, but end of year revenue losses, including $1.6 million less in sales taxes, caused city budget officials to slash that. Federal assistance filled some of the holes bringing this current year'sbudget to $189million.

- Next year the biggest revenue loss will actually not be from the pandemic. The settlement of a class action lawsuit means the city must eliminate its water capital fee, causing a $7.4 million drop.

- Harrah's Cherokee Center - Asheville has been closed, though staff hope for "strong third and fourth quarters with numerous rescheduled and annual events," according to the proposed budget. Still, next year center is anticipated to be down $1 million in spending. A$100 million renovation of the center's Thomas Wolfe Auditorium planned before the pandemic is in limbo.

- City parking fees are down after being suspended. The parking fund which was set to bring in$7.2 million this year and normally helps subsidize transit is now losing $500,000 a month. Some recovery next year couldbring it to $6.6 million.

Cots are lined 6 feet apart in a hallway as Harrah's Cherokee Center is prepared to house homeless in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic Asheville April 8, 2020.(Photo: Angela Wilhelm/awilhelm@citizentimes.com)

More: Pandemic shelter for homeless moved from Harrah's Center to hotel

- Sales tax, a top revenue source after property taxes and water, is estimated to be $27.3million next year. This year's original estimate was $28.5 million (though that has been reduced to $26.8 million)

- Interest earnings will be down $1.1 million due to rate decreases.

- A slowdown in development will mean a 7% drop in city development fees, a loss of $250,000

- Alcoholic Beverage Control revenues will be down 10% or $200,000 due to closure of bars and restaurants, the biggest customers.

- Across-the-board city pay increases are frozen, except for a raise to $31,200 ($15 an hour) for 92 lowest-paid city workers.That, plus increases for slightly betterpaid workers with higher positions or longer tenure, will cost $574,000.

- Despite the freeze, firefighters are continuing to push for a raise for the 77 lowest-paid firefighters. They make $33,935, but because of the time they spend overnight in fire stations, they work the equivalent of 56 hours a week,Asheville Fire Fighters Association President Scott Mullins said. "Every city employee makes $15 an hour except 77 fire fighters," Mullins said. City Manager Campbell has said she first wants to see the results of a pay and compensation study before making any recommendations. The study is scheduled to be finished by early June.

- Hiring is also frozen with the exception of seven new positions to maintain the River Arts District transportation improvements:three laborers, an equipment operator, atradesworker, a labor crew supervisor, and a labor crew coordinator.

- Property taxes, the biggest source of city revenue, are expected to rise from $68.5 million to $71.4 million. That's because of personal property belonging to the formerly nonprofit Mission Hospital becoming taxable now that the hospital's owned by the private company HCA.

- Transit has faced losses after the city made buses fare free and limited passenger numbers and service to reduce the chance of infection. But federal CARES Act funding has and will continue to bolster the system. Spending is set to grow from $11million to $12.3 million next year. That includes a $1.7 million increase from property taxes and other general fund revenues.

An Asheville Regional Transit driver wears a mask while driving down Haywood Road in West Asheville March 26, 2020. ART buses began limiting riders to 10, including the driver, March 25.(Photo: Angela Wilhelm/awilhelm@citizentimes.com)

- General fund money that goes to nonprofits should be reallocated to "support equity and address opportunity gap goals," Asheville Chief Financial Officer Barbara Whitehorn who gave much of the May 26 budget presentation to the council. Specifics:$35,000 to support Asheville City Schoolsafter-school coordinator; $43,000 to Parks and Recreation for extended community center hours andsummer youth and teen programming; $15,000 to Pisgah Legal Services Tenant Eviction Response Team.

Joel Burgess has lived in WNC for more than 20 years, covering politics, government and other news. He's written award-winning stories on topics ranging from gerrymandering to police use of force. Please help support this type of journalism with asubscriptionto the Citizen Times.

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Asheville zeroes in on $185M coronavirus austerity budget; Here's what's in it - Citizen Times

For Immediate Release: May 27, 2020

Today the U.S. Food and Drug Administration took a new step to support the agencys evaluation of diagnostic tests for COVID-19, by providing a SARS-CoV-2 reference panel. Reference panels are an additional step to ensure the quality of the tests, validation of new assays, test calibration, and monitoring of assay performance. Nucleic acid tests identify infection by confirming the presence of a virus genetic material (RNA) and the FDA-supplied reference panel provides developers access to this material. The FDAs reference panel is an independent performance validation step for diagnostic tests of SARS-CoV-2 infection that are being used for clinical, not research, purposes. The FDA panel is available to commercial and laboratory developers who are interacting with the FDA through the pre-emergency use authorization (EUA) process.

The FDA has taken many steps during this pandemic to ensure that Americans have access to trustworthy diagnostic tests. Todays reference panel will provide test developers with well-characterized reagents to compare the performance of different molecular diagnostic tests under the same conditions, said Jeffrey Shuren, M.D., J.D., director of the FDAs Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH). We are continuously evaluating our policies and approaches on diagnostic tests during this pandemic, including addressing poorly performing tests. We are committed to remaining flexible and providing more resources to developers as necessary, based on our regulatory expertise, real-world experience, and data, in order to protect and promote public health.

These types of reference panels have proven to be an invaluable resource in the development of accurate, reliable, and validated diagnostic tests for detecting infectious diseases. The FDA has provided similar tools to assist industry in developing tests for other infectious diseases. For example, since the Zika outbreak in 2015, through the collaborative work between CDRH and the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), the FDA has responded to the need to directly compare the performance of different diagnostic assays by developing and producing reference panels. This work resulted in the FDA making available first a Zika reference panel for molecular-based diagnostic tests, and then a panel of human plasma samples to support the regulatory evaluation of serological tests to detect recent Zika virus infection.

By providing this new tool to aid in the evaluation of diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2, the FDA continues its public health mandate in combatting this pandemic.

The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nations food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.

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05/27/2020

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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Provides New Tool to Aid Development and Evaluation of Diagnostic Tests That Detect SARS-CoV-2 Infection - FDA.gov