A chalkboard drawing of a person wearing a mask decorates a classroom where a student attends class in Havana, Cuba, Nov 2, 2020. (RAMON ESPINOSA / AP)

PARIS / NEW YORK / SAO PAULO / CARIO / LONDON / ROME / MEXICO CITY / BERLIN / MOSCOW / TBILISI / VATICAN CITY / DUBLIN / VIENNA - As Latin American nations test experimental coronavirus vaccines from across the globe and economic heavyweights such as Brazil and Mexico jockey for supply deals with major drugmakers, Cuba already has two of its own vaccines in clinical trials.

"Cuba's contribution with its vaccine could be very important for certain vulnerable groups in our region" such as the elderly, or remote indigenous communities, Jose Moya, the representative in Cuba for the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said

"Cuba's contribution with its vaccine could be very important for certain vulnerable groups in our region" such as the elderly, or remote indigenous communities, Jose Moya, the representative in Cuba for the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), told Reuters.

If a Cuban vaccine proves safe and effective, it would become available for purchase in the region through PAHO, the Americas regional office of the World Health Organization (WHO), Moya said.

Cuba's vaccine progress is being tracked by the WHO-led vaccine program COVAX, he said.

The country will favor exports to countries with which it has existing healthcare agreements, after ensuring it has enough for its own needs, a health official told the journal MEDICC Review.

The two vaccine candidates – known as Sovereign 1 and Sovereign 2 – target a part of the spike protein of the novel coronavirus called the receptor binding domain, which helps the virus stick to cells.

Cuba said last week it expects to have two more experimental COVID-19 vaccines in clinical trials by year-end.

Vatican

Pope Francis is offering free coronavirus tests for Rome's poor and homeless as part of the Roman Catholic Church's World Day of the Poor activities, the Vatican said on Thursday.

The swabs are being offered at a clinic off St. Peter's Square that the pope set up several years ago to provide basic medical care to destitute people, some of whom live on the streets in the neighbourhood around the Vatican.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella told reporters that some 50 coronavirus tests a day were being done and the initiative would continue indefinitely.

Those who test negative get a certificate to enter a shelter and those who test positive are directed to further treatment.

EU

The European Union increased by 100 million euros (US$118 million) to 500 million euros its contribution to the COVAX initiative aimed at ensuring any COVID-19 vaccines are distributed equitably around the globe. 

“A global recovery will only be possible if safe and effective vaccines are available to all who need it,” said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm in Brussels.

US

New COVID-19 infections in the United States reached a record on Wednesday while fatalities reached their highest point since May. 

The country recorded 152,255 fresh cases on Wednesday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg. The seven-day average is now more than 130,000, up from just under 50,000 a month ago. 

The US reported another 1,987 fatalities, the highest daily toll since May

Another 1,987 fatalities were reported. The seven-day average is about 1,140, compared with just over 700 a month ago.

The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 also surged to at least 64,939 by late Wednesday, the highest ever during the pandemic, according to a Reuters tally. 

In New Jersey, one of the early US hotspots, a spike in cases in Newark, the state's largest city, prompted Mayor Ras Baraka to implement aggressive measures, including a mandatory curfew for certain areas, to contain the spread of the virus. 

New York state and city officials also reported a worrying rise in the seven-day average infection rate that raised the specter of stricter mitigation measures adopted at the height of the pandemic.

At least three more people in President Donald Trump’s orbit - including White House political director Brian Jack - have tested positive for the COVID-19.

Hungary

Hungary may start laboratory tests on the Russian vaccine in a week-and-a-half and may begin clinical trials in December, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told state television late Wednesday. 

If the vaccine gets good results, the government may purchase “large quantities” in the second half of January and may even try to shift some of the vaccine production to Hungary, he said.

A sign featuring the AstraZeneca Plc logo stands at the company's DaVinci building at the Melbourn Science Park in Cambridge, UK, on June 8, 2020. (JASON ALDEN / BLOOMBERG)

AstraZeneca's cancer treatment

AstraZeneca Plc said on Thursday its blood cancer treatment, Calquence, failed to meet the main goal of mid-stage trials, testing it in patients hospitalized with respiratory symptoms of COVID-19. 

The drugmaker called the results from the study disappointing but said it remained committed to its clinical trials for its COVID-19 vaccine, developed in partnership with Oxford University, and its long-acting antibody combination.

AstraZeneca is among leading contenders in the race for a working vaccine for the novel coronavirus. Competitor Pfizer Inc this week published efficacy data that were seen as a major milestone on the way to a global immunisation campaign next year. 

Calquence, chemically called acalabrutinib, belongs to a class of drugs called Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitors which can suppress autoimmune diseases - conditions where the body's immune system mistakenly attacks the body itself. 

COVID-19 patients with severe symptoms including pneumonia are believed to suffer from an overreaction of the immune system known as cytokine storm. 

AstraZeneca had aimed to test whether Calquence, which suppresses certain elements of the immune system, can contain this immune response. 

Results from the trials will not impact approved indications or pending approvals for Calquence in patients with blood cancers, the British company said.

Medicago-GSK vaccine

A combination of Canadian drug developer Medicago's experimental COVID-19 vaccine and Britain's GlaxoSmithKline's adjuvant, will enter large human studies involving more than 30,000 volunteers this year, the two companies said on Thursday.

The news comes days after early-stage data showed Medicago's plant-based vaccine candidate produced virus-neutralizing antibodies in all volunteers. A lower dose of the vaccine will be used for further trials, Medicago said.

The mid-to-late-stage clinical studies will test the safety and immune response capabilities of a regimen involving two doses of the vaccine with GSK's pandemic adjuvant given 21 days apart, the companies said.

"Proven dose sparing and a high immune response due to GSK's adjuvant make us confident of delivering an efficacious vaccine with an acceptable safety profile in collaboration with Medicago," said Thomas Breuer, chief medical officer at GSK's vaccines division.

Poland

Deaths in Poland, with a population of 38 million people, amounted to 49,132 last month, about 40 percent higher than on average in past years and the first such spike during the pandemic. 

While the country reported 3,118 COVID-19 deaths in October, less than 7 percent of the total number of deceased, the virus played a much bigger role.

In an email to Bloomberg News, the health ministry said that it’s still analyzing the data, adding that people over 65 accounted for 92 percent of all the excessive deaths in recent weeks.

As of Wednesday, 21,899 COVID-19 beds were occupied, about two-thirds of total capacity.

Poland’s spike in new infections peaked last week at nearly 30,000 cases a day. But on Wednesday, new cases dropped to 22,632.

Austria

Austria's daily tally of new coronavirus infections surpassed 9,000 for the first time on Thursday, with the government coming under growing pressure to introduce tougher measures to bring the outbreak under control.

A total of 9,262 new cases were recorded in the past 24 hours, data from the interior and health ministries showed. The tally was even higher than the 9,105 reported by newspapers Kronen Zeitung and Oesterreich earlier on Thursday.

The previous record was 8,241, set on Saturday. 

The Alpine republic's government has said it will assess the situation on Friday, 13 days after it announced the curfew and partial shutdown, and might announce a further tightening of restrictions. It has said 6,000 new daily infections is the level at which hospitals will eventually be overwhelmed.

Ireland

The Irish government is confident that it will be able to drop some of the strictest COVID-19 restrictions in Europe on schedule in December following a sharp fall in infection rates, Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said on Thursday.

Misinformation on vaccines

Conspiracy theories and misinformation fuel mistrust in vaccines and could push levels that potential COVID-19 vaccines are taken in the United States and Britain below the rates needed to protect communities against the disease, a study found on Thursday.

The study of 8,000 people in the two countries found that fewer people would "definitely" take a COVID-19 vaccine than the 55 percent of the population scientists estimate is needed to provide so-called "herd immunity".

Before being exposed to misinformation, 54 percent of those in the UK said they would "definitely" accept a vaccine, as did 41.2 percent in the United States. 

But after being shown the online misinformation, that number fell by 6.4 percentage points in the UK group, and by 2.4 percentage points in the United States.

Georgia

Georgian Environment Protection and Agriculture Minister Levan Davitashvili tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday.

The minister feels well and continues to work at home, the ministry told local media. Those who have been in close contact with Davitashvili have been moved to self-isolation, the ministry added.

Georgia reported 3,120 new COVID-19 cases on the same day, bringing its tally to 69,681 with 599 deaths, according to the National Center for Disease Control and Public Health.

UK

More than 50,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the UK, making it the first country in Europe to cross the grim milestone.

Much of the UK is still struggling to slow the spread of the disease and the number of deaths has been increasing steadily. 

Positive COVID-19 cases in England rose 8 percent on the previous week, the same weekly rate of increase as before, the country's test and trace scheme said on Thursday, with the proportion of contacts of the cases reached remaining near record lows.

The UK recorded 22,950 new cases Wednesday, up from 20,412 on Tuesday.

Another 595 people have died from the disease on Wednesday within 28 days of a positive test, higher than the seven day rolling average of 360, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

A food bank volunteer distributes food to a student at the Ai-Marseille University St. Jerome Campus in Marseille, southern France, Nov 10, 2020. (PHOTO / AP)

France

It is not the right time to relax restrictions imposed upon France to curb the COVID-19 pandemic, French Prime Minister Jean Castex told Le Monde newspaper in an interview published on Thursday.

France reported 35,879 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, taking the total to 1.86 million, overtaking Russia and making France the worst affected country in the European region. 

With a total of 1,914,918 confirmed cases, France is the fourth-worst affected country in the world for novel coronavirus infections, according to data compiled by tally.  

France also reported 328 more deaths over the past 24 hours, lifting the toll to 42,535.

States and private charities will commit to more than US$500 million to boost research into the novel coronavirus at the Paris Peace Forum, organizers of the event said on Thursday.

The French government is also looking to provide further aid to small and medium-sized businesses hit by the current lockdown in the form of rental payment relief and tax credits, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday.

CureVac

German biotech company CureVac hopes to receive approval for its experimental COVID-19 vaccine in the third quarter of 2021, Chief Executive Franz-Werner Haas said on Thursday.

Haas said at a news conference of foreign journalists that the company aimed to initiate rolling review of its vaccine in the first quarter of 2021.

The company said its vaccine has been shown to remain stable at 5 degrees Celsius for at least three months, making it potentially easier to distribute than some rivals' compounds.

CureVac, which is close to launching Phase III testing of its vaccine, said the stability of the liquid vaccine was tested at its anticipated storage concentration, and it has been stored at 5 degrees Celsius C as well as below minus 60 degrees. Tests also established stability at room temperature for up to 24 hours, it said.

Moderna 

Moderna Inc. said its vaccine trial has accumulated enough infections to allow for a preliminary analysis of the shot’s effectiveness to begin.

Moderna didn’t predict how long it could take an independent monitoring committee to analyze the data, but said the company could get the data to the committee within days. The company said it is still blinded to the data.

“Moderna has seen a significant increase in the rate of case identification across sites in the last week,” the company said in a statement. “As a result, the company expects the first interim analysis will include substantially more than 53 cases, the targeted trigger point for the analysis.”

Global tally

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide topped 52 million while the toll has topped 1.28 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

WHO

People are becoming weary of the coronavirus pandemic but should remain vigilant and continue to take precautions while the world awaits a vaccine, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief said on Thursday.

"We may be tired of COVID-19 but it is not tired of us. European countries are struggling but the virus has not changed significantly, nor the measures to stop it," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the Paris Peace Forum.

"A vaccine is needed urgently, but we cannot wait for a vaccine and put all our eggs in one basket," Tedros said on Thursday, repeating a call for any COVID-19 vaccine to be shared fairly with poor countries.

COVID-19 cases are still surging in the Americas, averaging 150,000 a day in last week, the WHO's regional office said  Wednesday. 

The office warned of a challenge for transporting messenger RNA vaccines - such as the one developed by Pfizer Inc - in less developed countries which do not have cold storage capacity as the shots need to be stored at a very low temperature of minus 70 degree Celsius. 

Gates Foundation

The Gates Foundation added another US$70 million of funding on Thursday to global efforts to develop and distribute vaccines and treatments against the COVID-19 pandemic, saying it hoped other international donors would now also pledge more. 

An extra US$50 million will go to the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC) led by the GAVI vaccine alliance, the foundation said, and another US$20 million to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) which is co-funding development of several COVID-19 vaccine candidates.

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic reported 8,925 new coronavirus cases for Nov. 11, Health Ministry data showed on Thursday, well below a record daily tally registered a week ago as the country seeks to push down Europe's highest per-capita infection rate. 

Wednesday's tally brings the total number of infections in the country of 10.7 million since the pandemic started to 438,805. A record one-day tally of 15,727 cases was hit on Wednesday last week. 

Deaths rose by 247, which included 108 on Wednesday and revisions to previous days. In total, 5,570 have died after testing positive for COVID-19.

Germany

Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the door to extending coronavirus restrictions into December as Germany struggles to regain control of the pandemic. 

While rapid increases in new cases have slowed, levels are still too high, Merkel said on Thursday. 

The growth of COVID-19 infections in Germany could be much more severe without countermeasures, a senior official of the Robert Koch institute for infectious diseases (RKI) said on Thursday.

A senior official of the Robert Koch institute for infectious diseases warned the virus would have a reproduction rate of 3 to 4 without measures

The pandemic would have a reproduction rate of 3 to 4 without measures, the head of RKI's surveillance unit, Ute Rexroth, said at a virtual news conference.

Rules to slow the spread of COVID-19 will remain for a long time but new infection numbers can be brought down if "we pull ourselves together", Lothar Wieler, the head of RKI, said at the same news briefing. He said that the number of undetected cases has likely grown over the past weeks.

Coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 21,866 to 727,553 while the death toll rose by 215 to 11,982, RKI data showed earlier in the day. 

According to a separate tally by Johns Hopkins University, the country saw 22,401 new cases and another 213 deaths.

The reproduction factor fell to 0.77 on Wednesday from 0.88 the day before.

Germany's health minister said he expected restrictions to continue through winter, adding that he does not see life normalizing in December or January even if the number of new infections fell. 

Russia

Russia reported a record high of 439 additional deaths related to the novel coronavirus on Thursday, taking the official death toll to 32,032. 

Authorities also reported 21,608 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, including 5,997 in the capital Moscow, bringing the national tally to 1,858,568.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that city authorities were expecting the number of infections to increase and that the situation with hospital beds could remain critical for some time. He said about 12,000 coronavirus patients were currently receiving treatment in hospitals across the city.

"I hope that more restrictions will not be needed, but that will depend on the situation," Sobyanin said in an interview with state television.

A patient in an ICU box in Barcelona. (PHOTO / BLOOMBERG)

Spain

Spain will demand a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours for all travellers arriving from countries with a high risk of contracting the coronavirus from Nov 23, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday. 

One of Europe's main COVID-19 hotspots, Spain had increasingly become an exception in the region for its policy of - so far - not asking visitors to provide a PCR test on arrival. 

Spain will use European Union criteria to define which countries are classified as high-risk, the ministry said. "The basic reference will be the accumulated incidence per 100,000 inhabitants in the past 14 days," it said, without providing more details.

The number of Spaniards who have died from COVID-19 has exceeded the 40,000 mark, the country’s health ministry said Wednesday. 

A total of 40,105 people have now succumbed to the virus, 349 more than yesterday’s total. Cases diagnosed over the previous 24 hours rose to 8,943 from 7,552 on Tuesday, the ministry said.

Italy

Italy, one of the European countries hit hardest by COVID-19, surpassed the one-million infections mark on Wednesday, leap-frogging Mexico to become one of the top 10 worst-affected countries globally, according to a Reuters tally. 

The Italian health ministry said the country had registered 32,961 new cases over the past 24 hours, taking its total tally since the contagion first struck in February to 1.028 million. 

Italy has reported some 42,953 deaths so far, the health ministry said - the second-highest number in Europe after Britain.

Greece

Greece reported 43 deaths from the coronavirus, the highest daily increase since the beginning of the pandemic, bringing the total number to 909 in the nation of around 11 million people.

The country, which has been in lockdown since Nov. 7, will also now be subject to a night-time curfew from 9 pm to 5 am starting Nov. 13, Greek Deputy Citizen Protection Minister Nikos Hardalias said. During curfew, people can leave their homes only for work purposes, health emergencies or short walks with pets, he said. The occupancy rate for beds in intensive care units for the whole country is 71 percent.

Sweden

Stockholm scrambled on Wednesday to curb COVID-19 infections at its nursing homes, reimposing a ban on visits and piloting rapid-result coronavirus testing of staff. 

Sweden's nursing homes, particularly in the capital, were ravaged by the initial wave of the pandemic, prompting Prime Minister Stefan Lofven's sombre admission in May that the country failed to protect its elderly. 

After slowing to a trickle in summer, infections at Stockholm's nursing homes have shot up in recent weeks. Of the region's 313 facilities, 48 now have cases, data showed, an increase of more than 20 from last week.

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Ukraine

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was hospitalised after he contracted coronavirus earlier this week, a presidential official said on Thursday.

“He first went home, but decided to move to Feofania (hospital). To accurately isolate and not expose anyone,” a presidential spokeswoman told Reuters.

Ukraine registered a record 11,057 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, its health minister said on Thursday, up from a high of 10,746 reported on Nov. 7. 

Maksym Stepanov said the new cases had taken the total confirmed infections to 500,865, with 9,145 deaths. He also said 198 new deaths had been reported in the past 24 hours.

Lithuania

Lithuania's capital Vilnius is preparing to set up a 700-bed makeshift hospital in its largest exhibition centre, as the city fears its health system may soon get overloaded by coronavirus cases. 

Lithuania reported 1,433 new cases on Tuesday, bringing its total so far to 28,262 cases and 235 deaths. The number of daily cases has increased tenfold from a month ago.
The town is launching tenders to buy oxygen equipment and beds, and is recruiting medical staff to work at the hospital. It will take six weeks to set up, Povilas Poderskis, head of city administration, told reporters. 

"We really hope the situation will not get so bad that we actually need the facility", he said. "It's better to be prepared even if we don't need it, than to be unprepared when we need it."

The city has plans to increase the total number of beds in existing hospitals for treating COVID cases to about 350, at a cost of reducing regular medical services, he said. Hospitals in Vilnius were treating 88 coronavirus patients on Wednesday.

Brazil

Brazil reported a total of 5,748,375 Covid-19 cases, of which 48,331 were in the last 24 hours, the Health Ministry said. The tally may not include all pending cases that have not been reported in the last few days due to technical issues, it added.

The death toll rose by 544 to 163,373, excluding the latest fatalities in Minas Gerais state, whose numbers were last updated on Nov. 7.

Meanwhile, health agency Anvisa authorized Sinovac Biotech Ltd. to resume its vaccine trials less than 48 hours after halting the tests, which are being conducted in the state of Sao Paulo. 

Argentina

The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, and several of his ministers began preventative isolation after coming in close contact with an official infected with coronavirus, the government said in a statement late on Wednesday.

Fernández tested negative for COVID-19 but will nonetheless remain in isolation, the statement said. His foreign and interior ministers, as well as the Minister of Women, Gender and Diversity are still awaiting the results of their respective tests.

Argentina's curve of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infections has begun to show a decline, more than eight months since the first case was detected, the Health Ministry's Secretary of Access to Health Carla Vizzotti said on Wednesday.

An analysis of week 43 of the epidemic, which runs from Oct. 18 to 24, indicated a decrease in the number of cases across the country, said Vizzotti.

"We see a stabilization in the number of cases and the beginning of the downward curve nationwide, not only in the AMBA (Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires) region," Vizzotti said.

Argentina registered its first case of COVID-19 on March 3 and has to date reported 1,262,476 confirmed cases of infection and 34,183 deaths from the disease.

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Mexico

Mexico has a total of 986,177 cases, according to data released by the Health Ministry Wednesday night. Deaths rose 588 to 96,430. The ministry says 35 percent of general COVID-19 beds are occupied.

Chile

Chile's COVID-19 positivity rate stands at 4.08 percent nationwide, Minister of Health Enrique Paris said on Wednesday.

In the capital of Santiago and Metropolitan region, the positivity rate is even lower, at 2 percent, he said.

Meanwhile, confirmed cases of COVID-19 have declined by 4 percent in the last two weeks, as nine of the South American country's 16 regions have reported a decrease in the number of coronavirus patients.

According to the Ministry of Health's daily pandemic report, the total number of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 in Chile rose to 524,804, with 904 new cases detected in the past 24 hours, while the death toll from the disease climbed to 14,633 after 22 more daily deaths.

Social distancing bubble dining tents on a restaurant's roof in New York. (PHOTO / BLOOMBERG) 

Africa

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the African continent has reached 1,904,820, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Wednesday.

The continental disease control and prevention agency said in a statement that the death toll related to the pandemic stood at 45,954 as of Wednesday afternoon.

A total of 1,607,108 people infected with COVID-19 have recovered across the continent so far, according to the continental disease control and prevention agency.

The most COVID-19 affected African countries in terms of the number of positive cases include South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, and Ethiopia, figures from the Africa CDC show.

Algeria

Algerian health authorities on Wednesday reported 811 new COVID-19 cases, the highest single-day increase since the outbreak of the pandemic in the North African country in February.

In addition, 16 died from the virus and 354 were discharged from hospitals in the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 2,093, Djamel Fourar, head of the Scientific Committee for Monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic, told reporters during his daily press briefing. 

The total number of coronavirus infections has reached 64,257 in Algeria, with 45 patients still in intensive care units, he said.

Morocco 

Morocco registered 5,461 new COVID-19 cases, taking the total tally in the North African country to 270,626, the health ministry said in a statement.

It also reported 81 new deaths from the coronavirus, raising the death toll in Morocco to 4,506. The tally of recoveries in Morocco increased by 4,892 to 221,743, while 970 patients remained in the intensive care units.

South Africa

With COVID-19 cases flaring up again in some parts of South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa warned against complacency about the virus in a television address on Wednesday.

"The first is the situation in the Eastern Cape, which is showing signs of a resurgence. In the last week, the number of new cases in the province was 50 percent higher than the week before," he said, adding that with many people moving between the Eastern Cape and other provinces, particularly the Western Cape, it is a matter of time before this surge spreads to other parts of the country.

"We therefore need to take measures to contain the rise in infections," said the president. "In response to the rising infections, we are implementing the resurgence plan that has been developed together with the surge team deployed to South Africa by the World Health Organization."

Rwanda 

Rwanda late Wednesday reported 27 new COVID-19 cases in the Nyarugenge Prison in Kigali, taking the daily count to 50, the highest in the past two months.

The other cases were found in Kirehe and Rwamagana districts in the Eastern Province and Rubavu district in the Western Province, said the daily update of the Health Ministry.

The new cases brought the national tally to 5,312. The total recoveries and deaths rose to 4,974 and 41 respectively, with seven new recoveries and one more death reported over the past 24 hours.

The outbreak in Kigali's prison came after Health Minister Daniel Ngamije on Monday revealed 13 cases in Rwamagana's prison.