Coronavirus Global Updates, Oct 03: Staying At Walter Reed Hospital, Trump Has Started Remdesivir Therapy

Sat Oct 3 10:57:43 CAT 2020

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Zimbabwe COVID19 Update

COVID-19 update: As at 02 October 2020, Zimbabwe had 7 858 confirmed cases, including 6 322 recoveries and 228 deaths.

Staying At Walter Reed Hospital, Trump Has Started Remdesivir Therapy

President Trump leaves the White House on Friday for Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he is expected to spend a few days "out of an abundance of caution."

President Trump's physician said late Friday evening he is "doing very well" at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and has started Remdesivir therapy, an intravenous anti-viral drug. "He has completed his first dose and is resting comfortably," Sean Conley said in a statement.

Trump made an unannounced trip Friday to Walter Reed in Bethesda, Md., after testing positive for the coronavirus.

In a brief video message posted to Twitter about his trip to the hospital, Trump thanked his well-wishers for their support and said he feels that he's "doing very well" in spite of his positive test.

The Philippines has reported 2,674 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, the highest daily increase in five days.

Health ministry figures published on Saturday showed the a further 62 people had died from the virus.

In a bulletin, the ministry said total confirmed cases in the Philippines have increased to 319,330, the highest in Southeast Asia.

Meanwhile, deaths have reached 5,678, a third of which were recorded in the past 30 days.

Covid vaccine could be rolled-out in UK within 3 months – report

A coronavirus vaccine could be be rolled out across Britain in as little as three months, according to a report in the Times.

Unnamed government sources involved in making and distributing the Oxford vaccine told the Times they expect a full inoculation programme, which would exclude children, could take six months or less after approval.

The paper reports that “scientists working on the Oxford vaccine hope it could be approved by regulators before the start of next year, with some health officials estimating that every adult could receive a dose within six months”.

This would raise the hope of the UK public receiving Covid-19 jabs by Easter, the paper said.

Oxford University’s potential Covid-19 vaccine, which is being jointly developed by firm AstraZeneca, was initially hoped to be available by September this year.

However trials had to be put on hold last month to investigate the “potentially unexpected illness” of one participant.

At the time AstraZeneca’s chief executive Pascal Soriot said the vaccine could still be available by the end of this year or early next year. The trial resumed a few days later.

Russia has recorded 9,859 new coronavirus in the past 24 hours, the highest number of daily infections since 15 May, when the outbreak was at its peak.

Its coronavirus crisis centre said that 174 deaths had been confirmed in the last 24 hours, which took the official national toll to 21,251.

New Zealand will not reciprocate quarantine-free trips across the Tasman as the Australian Capital Territory joins Australia’s travel bubble with the country.

On Friday, Australia’s deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, announced New South Wales and the Northern Territory would allow Kiwis to bypass the compulsory fortnight of quarantine on arrival from 16 October.

Singapore has recorded six new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the nation’s smallest daily increase since March.

Of those six, four were classed as ‘imported cases’ – travellers who had been ordered to stay home on arrival into the Southeast Asian island nation.

The city-state has seen cases fall sharply in recent months as it has brought outbreaks in migrant worker dormitories under control, according to Reuters.

The experimental coronavirus drug being used to treat Donald Trump has been trialled on hundreds of UK patients, according to an Oxford University professor.

Trump was given the yet-to-be-peer-reviewed artificial antibody treatment at the White House on Friday, before he was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre.

The drug began being used in “about three hospitals in the north” last weekend as part of Oxford University’s national Recovery trial, said Prof Peter Horby.

Horby, who specialises in emerging infectious diseases at Oxford University and is co-chief investigator of the Recovery trial, added that the drug is due to be rolled out to “another 30 to 40 hospitals” in the UK next week.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday morning, Horby described the drug as “very promising” and “very potent”.

He said:

The class of drugs, these artificial antibodies, have been around for quite a while now, and they’ve been extensively used in inflammatory conditions and cancers, and they’re pretty safe and well understood, and so the technology is something that I think we have confidence in.

This particular drug has probably been given to, I would think now, four or five hundred patients, mild or severe patients in different trials, and so far there’s been no worrying safety signals.

In the laboratory, in cell cultures it has a very strong effect against the virus, and there have been studies in artificial animals where it also shows benefits. So probably of the drugs that are available, it’s one of the most promising.”

Horby said a single dose of the treatment provides “prolonged protection” for “a month to six weeks”, making it “quite attractive for the older population”.

The antibody cocktail works by binding to a protein on the surface of the virus, stopping it from attaching to cells and replicating, while allowing the immune system to attack the virus.

Trump has been given the drug alongside Remdesivir, an antiviral treatment which has been shown to help some coronavirus patients recover faster.

Solomon Islands, previously one of a handful of countries that had remained Covid-free throughout this global pandemic, has reported its first case.

The Solomon Islands prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare, has just confirmed in a nationally televised address that one Solomon Islands student repatriated from the Philippines late last month has tested positive for Covid-19.

“It pains me to say we have lost our Covid-19 free status, despite our collective efforts to prevent the pandemic from entering our country.”

The student is in quarantine but is asymptomatic. He had been tested before leaving Manila – returning a negative result – but tested positive later in Honiara.

Sogavare said contact tracing and testing of medical staff attending to students was now taking place. All of the students who returned on the repatriation flight are undertaking a compulsory 14-day quarantine. The infected student - as well as two other suspected cases - have been taken into hospital isolation facilities.

Sogavare reaffirmed that there were currently no confirmed cases of community transmission, and assured Solomon Islanders there were no plans for any lockdowns at this stage.

“Fellow citizens, while we have been working to prevent the virus from reaching our shores, it is now with us. However … we are ready to identify it … to isolate it … to contain it … and to eliminate it.”

Sogavare announced that all repatriation flights of Solomon Islander citizens have been suspended until further notice.

Pacific islands have been largely spared the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic – with very low case numbers – but there are fears that, if the virus was to take hold, it could spread rapidly among populations that live close together, have high rates of comorbidities, and fragile and underresourced public health systems.

While the virus has remained largely under control so far, Pacific economies, particularly those dependent on tourism, have been devastated by the pandemic. The economy of Fiji, one of the largest Melanesian countries, is expected to retreat more than 20% this year.

Thailand. The former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra tested positive for coronavirus, was hospitalised in Dubai, but has since recovered, AFP reports.

“It’s true he was infected several weeks ago, but now he has recovered. He joked that he was on trend,” a source within Pheu Thai, a political party linked to Thaksin, told AFP, asking not to be named.

Germany has recorded 2,563 new Covid-19 cases, taking its total to 296,958, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases.

Germany’s death toll increased by 19 to 9,527.

Canada reports over 2,000 new coronavirus cases for first time since start of pandemic

WATCH: Coronavirus — Canada now at 160,535 total confirmed cases of COVID-19, 9,319 deaths

·       

Canada reported 2,122 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Friday, of which 2,049 were diagnosed in the last 24 hours.

It was the highest daily case total Canada has seen, though 2,777 cases were recorded on May 3 due to Quebec adjusting its total by more than 1,300 because of a computer issue.

However, testing has increased dramatically since then, with Canada administering 101,985 tests on Friday compared to the 29,855 on May 3.

A total of 89 deaths were also reported by health authorities across the country, of which only eight had occurred in the last 24-hours.

The virus has now claimed the lives of 9,409 people in Canada, while a total of 162,490 infections have been identified across the country.

A total of 137,614 patients have since recovered from the virus as of Friday, and over 8.9 million tests have been administered.

India’s coronavirus tally on Friday rose to 63,94,069 with 81,484 new cases in the last 24 hours. The country’s toll went up by 1,095 to 99,773. As many as 53,52,078 people have recovered from the infection, pushing the recovery rate to 83.7%. The case fatality rate stood at 1.56%.

Kerala reported its biggest one-day rise of 9,258 new cases, taking its tally to 2,12,626. Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which prohibits the assembly of more than four people, has been imposed in Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam and Kottayam districts amid rising coronavirus cases. The orders will be in effect from October 3 to October 31.

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