LOS ANGELES Anne Rimoin, an infectious diseases expert at the UCLA, called for full involvement of the CDC in the contact tracing around President Donald Trump.
Rimoin says samples could be taken from people who are infected. By taking genetic material of the virus and sequencing it, scientists can build a road map of who spread it to whom and reconstruct a much better timeline.
White House doctor Sean Conley has refused to say when Trump last tested negative, saying he doesnt want to go backwards. Rimoin says thats exactly what contact tracing requires. Knowing how long the president was infected, and others around him, can help identify who was exposed.
Rimoin calls it irresponsible and reckless not to trace and break trains of transmission to save lives right now and to learn more about super-spreading.
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HERES WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
Virginia Gov. Northam has mild symptoms 2 weeks after virus diagnosis
15 vaccine clinical trials underway in Africa
India has 61,267 new cases, its lowest daily increase since Aug. 25
Despite decades of warnings about the fragile supply lines bringing protective gear from overseas factories to Americas health care workers, the U.S. was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic.
Some survivors and kin of those who have died are angry over Trumps advice not to fear COVID-19.
White House blocks FDA guidelines on bringing potential vaccines to market that would almost certainly prevent approval before election.
Follow APs pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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HERES WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:
RICHMOND, Va. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam says hes developed mild symptoms of the coronavirus a little less than two weeks after he and the first lady tested positive.
Northam told The Washington Post that he had some cold-like symptoms over the weekend and had lost his sense of taste and smell.
The Democratic governor, who is a physician, says he feels fine otherwise. While discussing his own illness, Northam says he was alarmed that President Donald Trump was playing down the severity of the disease even after being diagnosed with the virus.
In a tweet Monday, the president said of COVID-19, Dont let it dominate your life. More than 210,000 Americans have died from the virus.
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HARRISBURG, Pa. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has loosened coronavirus-related crowd restrictions for indoor and outdoor events.
No indoor venue can hold more than 3,750 people and no outdoor venue can exceed a cap of 7,500 people. The new rules take effect Friday.
The state health secretary, Dr. Rachel Levine, cautioned officials can and will dial back these new limits if events are linked to outbreaks.
Wolfs previous limits of 25 people indoors and 250 outdoors were thrown out by a western Pennsylvania federal judge. But the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the governors limits on Oct. 1 while that decision is appealed.
The Democrat called Tuesdays shift a gradual adjustment to our lives as we learn how we can do things safely until theres a vaccine for the virus.
Pennsylvania has nearly 160,000 confirmed cases and 8,244 deaths.
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SEATTLE The University of Washington says a coronavirus outbreak in its Greek community increased to more than 160 students since last week.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported there were 163 confirmed coronavirus cases among 12 fraternities and sororities on Monday.
University officials have urged students to isolate if they have tested positive or are experiencing symptoms. Students who had close contact with infected peers have been encouraged to get tested.
Seattle and King County Public Health Departments Dr. Jeff Duchin says the outbreak has shown the difficulty of returning to campus during the pandemic.
Officials have also warned people to stay vigilant as cooler weather will mean more time indoors, which could facilitate the spread of the virus.
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WEST SENECA, N.Y. Authorities say an 80-year-old New York man has died after a confrontation with a patron at a bar for not wearing a mask.
Donald M. Lewinski, 65, is scheduled to be charged Tuesday with the felony of criminally negligent homicide.
Rocco E. Sapienza confronted Lewinski at a bar in West Seneca on Sept. 26 because he wasnt wearing a mask, Erie County prosecutors said Monday. Lewinski then shoved Sapienza, who fell and struck his head on the floor, said District Attorney John Flynn.
Sapienza was knocked unconscious, suffered a seizure and died on Oct. 1, according to The Buffalo News.
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SKOPJE, North Macedonia North Macedonia says it will relax border restrictions for visitors from four neighboring countries.
Effective Oct. 12, visitors from Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina will no longer have to carry negative COVID-19 test results to be allowed entry, officials said Tuesday.
A public health committee which analyses infection trends, said visits from the four countries no longer posed a substantial risk.
Negative tests are still required for Macedonian nationals to enter neighboring Bulgaria, while the southern border with Greece remains closed.
Facing a recent spike in cases, public health officials Monday announced that the
total number of confirmed cases has exceeded 18,800 while the death toll reached 760 deaths in the country of 2.1 million.
Restrictions that remain in effect include a ban on public gatherings and early closing at bars, while most school students are attending classes online.
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WASHINGTON President Donald Trumps coronavirus diagnosis proved that testing alone wasnt enough to protect him.
Mask wearing and social distancing are other key ingredients for preventing the spread of COVID-19, and both have often been in short supply at the White House.
Trumps press secretary once called the president the most tested man in America when it came to COVID-19. The White House has not required masks, only testing. Anyone near the president or vice president is tested prior to the days events.
Testing alone doesnt prevent disease spread, said Dr. Cyrus Shahpar, a former CDC scientist. The main benefit of testing is to identify people with infections and isolate them before they can spread the disease to others, he says.
Health experts also advise social distancing, a recommendation ignored at several recent White House events.
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GENEVA The World Trade Organization is predicting a 9.2% drop in global merchandise trade this year.
Economists from the Geneva-based trade body on Tuesday revised their prediction in April of a 12.9-percent drop this year. That revision follows improved trade performances in June and July, notably due to rising demand for health care goods and electronic equipment.
WTO forecasters now predict a 7.2 percent rise in merchandise trade next year. The forecasts excludes trade in services and focuses only on merchandise.
The WTO cautioned that any sustained recovery will depend on the strength of investment and employment.
Both could be undermined if confidence is dented by new outbreaks of COVID-19, which might force governments to impose additional lockdowns, WTO said in a statement.
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AMSTERDAM The upper house of the Dutch parliament has approved a new law regulating the use of a coronavirus tracking app, clearing the way for it to be rolled out nationwide on Saturday.
The smartphone app has been tested in five regions and already has been downloaded 1.3 million times in the Netherlands, a nation of 17 million.
The vote came as the Dutch public health institute reported Tuesday that 27,485 people tested positive in the Netherlands in the past week, up from 19,326 the previous week.
The total number of cases stands at nearly 150,000 and 6,482 confirmed deaths.
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WASHINGTON The White House has blocked new Food and Drug Administration guidelines on bringing potential vaccines for COVID-19 to market that likely would have prevented their approval before the Nov. 3 election.
At issue was the FDAs planned requirement that participants in mass clinical trials for vaccines be followed for two months to ensure there are no side effects and the vaccines provide lasting protection. Despite the move by the White House, FDA officials say companies are aware of the standards and are expected to comply with them.
FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn has been attempting to shore up public confidence in the FDAs vaccine review for weeks, vowing that career scientists, not politicians, will decide if the shots are safe and effective for mass vaccination.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted that a vaccine could be authorized before Election Day, despite top government scientists saying that timeline is very unlikely.
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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, along with seven ministers and six deputy ministers, are observing a voluntary two-week quarantine.
They attended a meeting on Oct. 3 with a minister who tested positive for the coronavirus after returning from Sabah. Malaysias police chief and the health director-general attended the meeting and are isolating at home.
Coronavirus cases in Malaysia spiked to a new daily record of 691 on Tuesday. Theres been four new deaths, including a one-year-old baby. Muhyiddin ruled out another national lockdown, saying measures will be targeted to curb transmission in hotspot zones.
The cases Tuesday pushed the totals to 13,504 infections and 141 deaths.
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JOHANNESBURG Fifteen clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines are underway across the African continent, according to a comment published in the journal Nature by Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Five trials are occurring in South Africa and four in Egypt, with a single trial each in Guinea-Bissau, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
African nations have teamed up to combat the pandemic, with painful memories of millions of Africans dying in the decade it took for affordable HIV drugs to become available on the continent.
Africa has ended up at the end of the queue every time in the race for disease therapies, the Nature comment said. But COVID-19 has jolted the African Union into jointly pursuing vaccine trials and vaccine manufacturing.
The Africa CDC estimates the continent will need 1.5 billion vaccine doses, enough to give 60% of the population the two doses likely required. Vaccines and delivery could cost up to $10 billion, and delivery across the vast continent will be a major challenge.
The Nature comment indicates that authorities are willing to partner with beverage companies, noting that refrigerated bottles of Coca-Cola are available in even the remotest areas of Africa.
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ROME Italys health minister says the government is examining a proposal to make masks mandatory outdoors, with the number of infections growing steadily for the last nine weeks.
Roberto Speranza says as infections spread, it is necessary to return to restrictions that were gradually loosened over the spring and summer months after Italys strict nearly three-month lockdown.
The government is expected to pass new measures by Wednesday making it necessary to wear masks outdoors and limit gatherings. The government also wants to extend the state of emergency put into place on Jan. 31, while the epidemic was still believed confined to China, until the end of January 2022, making it easier to enforce new measures on a national level.
Speranza said the recent uptick in cases has been primarily from gatherings of friends and acquaintances, making it even more pressing for people to wear masks in the presence of those not living in the same household. He noted there are currently 58,900 cases of the virus in Italy, compared with 12,600 two months ago, an indication of how it is spreading even if it is well below the peaks of last March and April.
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LONDON The European Medicines Agency has begun reviewing a second potential coronavirus vaccine in an expedited process that could grant approval earlier than normal if it proves safe and effective.
In a statement Tuesday, the EU regulator said it has started examining early laboratory data from a COVID-19 vaccine being developed by BioNTech and Pfizer.
This does not mean that a conclusion can be reached yet on the vaccines safety and effectiveness, as much of the evidence is still to be submitted to the committee, the EMA said. It added that the agencys decision to start the expedited approval process was based on preliminary results from studies in adults which suggest the vaccine triggers the bodys immune system to fight COVID-19.
Advanced tests involving thousands of people getting the vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer are ongoing and results will likely become available in the coming months.
Last week, EMA announced it had begun a similar fast-track approval process for a coronavirus vaccine still being tested by Oxford University and AstraZeneca. The expedited process means an approval could be granted in weeks rather than months.
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TOKYO Japan and South Korea have agreed to resume business travel between them starting Oct. 8, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry. South Koreans will be able to enter Japan for business and conduct work but will be required to undergo a 14-day quarantine after entry, the ministry said in a statement Tuesday.
South Korea has reported slightly more than 400 deaths from the coronavirus, while Japan has confirmed about 1,600.
Japan has imposed an entry ban on people from many countries because of the pandemic. The ban has been gradually relaxed, including for travelers from Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam, although a 14-day quarantine is required.
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NEW DELHI India has registered 61,267 new coronavirus cases, its lowest daily increase since Aug. 25.
The country with nearly 6.7 million reported infections has had the highest single-day increases in the world for nearly 45 days. The last three weeks, however, have seen a gradual decline.
The Health Ministry on Tuesday also reported 884 deaths in the past 24 hours. The death toll now stands at 103,569.
India has the second-highest number of reported infections and is on track to exceed the caseload in the United States within weeks.
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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka Sri Lanka has confirmed that more than 300 garment factory workers have been infected with the coronavirus, after reporting its first community infection in two months.
The health ministry says 321 cases have been identified in the cluster as of Tuesday after the first patient was diagnosed at a hospital two days ago.
To contain the outbreak, the government imposed a curfew in two suburbs of the capital where the majority of patients live, closed schools and universities, and imposed restrictions on public transport.
For more than two months, Sri Lanka health officials have said they have prevented a community spread of the virus and all diagnosed patients had belonged to two known clusters.
The country has reported 3,471 cases and 13 deaths.
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