U.S. deaths from the coronavirus will reach 410,000 by the end of 2020 and deaths could soar to 3,000 per day in December, the University of Washington’s health institute forecast.
White House Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx dismissed the notion that the White House was considering a strategy of allowing Americans to become infected with coronavirus in order to reach “herd immunity.”
The Trump administration will send most of its newly purchased 150 million rapid Covid-19 tests to U.S. states for schools and critical services, a White House official said, as New York City pushed back reopening classrooms in a deal with union leaders.
The Trump administration will purchase 150 million rapid coronavirus tests from Abbott Laboratories for about $750 million, a White House spokeswoman said.
The United States entered an agreement with drugmaker Moderna Inc. to acquire 100 million doses of the company’s potential COVID-19 vaccine for around $1.5 billion, the company and White House said.
Russia became the first country to grant regulatory approval to a Covid-19 vaccine, after less than two months of human testing.
In an aim to create a strong domestic supply chain, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order that calls for federal agencies to purchase “essential drugs” and medical supplies that are produced in the United States, rather than from abroad as is the current practice.
Nearly 300,000 Americans could be dead from Covid-19 by Dec. 1, University of Washington health experts forecast, although they said 70,000 lives could be saved if people were scrupulous about wearing masks.
The United States is in a new phase of the novel coronavirus outbreak with infections “extraordinarily widespread” in rural areas as well as cities, White House coronavirus experts said on Sunday.
A meeting with top pharmaceutical executives that President Donald Trump promised wasn called off, a White House official said.