Coronavirus Breaking News

As of August 24, 2020, the U.S. FDA had authorized 221 coronavirus diagnostic tests, which include 179 molecular tests, 39 antibody tests, and 3 antigen tests.

A travel warning was issued on August 24, 2020, by Germany's foreign ministry for Paris and the French Cote d'Azur regions, due to an increase of coronavirus infections. RTE reported the foreign ministry said it was 'warning against unnecessary tourist trips to the Ile-de-France region, which includes Paris, and the southern region, which includes Marseille and Nice.'

The UNC-Chapel Hill reported 218 new COVID-19 cases among students on August 24, 2020. These new cases were reported between Friday and Sunday, bringing the total number of cases among UNC-Chapel Hill students and employees to nearly 650 since classes started on August 10, 2020.

In response to this coronavirus outbreak, UNC-Chapel Hill announced it was moving classes online for the fall semester, just one week after beginning the semester. As did N.C. State University and East Carolina University after seeing spikes in coronavirus cases on campus.

A new study found 'a low diagnostic yield of repeat testing for SARS-CoV-2 in a Los Angeles California health system. These researchers said 'repeat testing might prove useful in certain clinical scenarios, such as in healthcare workers, when symptoms develop after a negative test, and in hospitalized patients with a high clinical suspicion for COVID-19.'

Of 10,165 patients tested for COVID-19 disease, 6.2% were positive, and only 1.9% tested positive after an initial negative result, according to a retrospective study published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases.

According to reporting by the NYPost on August 24, 2020, the US government is issuing expanded coronavirus testing rules for nursing homes in the USA, including the state of New York. An AP analysis on August 11, 2020, found that as many as 11,000 New York nursing home residents may have died during the coronavirus pandemic.

The new rules require that nursing homes offer tests to patients if anyone in the facility contracts COVID-19 or exhibits symptoms. And in most cases, the nursing homes will be required to publicly report test results. “These new rules represent a dramatic ramp-up in our efforts to track and control the spread of COVID-19, especially in nursing homes,” Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma said in a statement.

The WHO announced on August 24, 2020, that there are 172 economies now engaged in discussions to potentially participate in COVAX, a global initiative aimed at working with vaccine manufacturers to provide countries worldwide equitable access to safe and effective vaccines. COVAX currently has the world’s largest and most diverse COVID-19 vaccine portfolio - including nine candidate vaccines, with a further nine under evaluation and conversations underway.

As of August 24, 2020, there are 481 vaccine and therapeutic studies in the USA seeing participants at Antidote.

A pregnant mother who tested positive for COVID-19 disease transmitted the coronavirus causing the disease to her prematurely born baby, UT Southwestern physicians report on August 20, 2020. Both patients were treated and recovered.

This new case, detailed in an article published in the September 2020 edition of The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, adds to a growing body of evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can be transmitted in utero.