Redfield names Caputo's comments on C.D.C. "False allegations" and said they "made me deeply sad".
Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a Senate panel Wednesday morning that he was "deeply saddened" by a senior health communications official's comments on government scientists who are "rioting" and a " Resistance Unit ”to defeat President Trump.
At a government hearing on the pandemic response, Dr. Redfield reported that a spate of conspiracies alleged in a Facebook video by Michael Caputo, top spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, were "false allegations" that insulted his agency.
"CDC. Is made up of thousands of dedicated men and women who are highly competent," he said. "It's the world's leading health agency."
Mr Caputo apologized to his staff on Tuesday for the embarrassment at the health department and is considering taking a leave of absence to address physical health issues.
Dr. Redfield testified for the first time since news reports showed how Washington officials – including Mr. Caputo – tried to obtain the C.D.C. to manipulate. Coronavirus reports, revelations that caused outrage from current and former health officials and public health experts.
Mr. Caputo and a colleague pushed the C.D.C. closely guarded and apolitical C.D.C. Health bulletins, called weekly reports of morbidity and mortality, to put the government's pandemic response in a more positive light.
Senator Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the health panel, said at the hearing it was "dangerous and unprecedented for political officials to edit, censor and ultimately undermine a report intended to serve families, public health professionals, researchers and health care providers what they need: the truth. "
Dr. Redfield promised that “at no point will the scientific integrity of the M.M.W.R. has been compromised. "
"We are not going to let political influence try to modulate this," he said. "The scientific integrity of the M.M.W.R. has not been compromised and will not be compromised on my watch. "
Dr. Redfield defended what many view as the limping CDC, which was repeatedly criticized during the pandemic for bowing to pressure from the White House and other authorities to dilute its leadership and slowly abstaining from moving in the first few months of the pandemic Outbreak in the United States.
At another point in the hearing, Dr. Redfield asked when a coronavirus vaccine might be available to the public. He estimated that one could be available for limited use by the end of the year and for wider distribution by mid-2021. This estimate reflected what other senior health officials, including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, have used it for the past few weeks.
And even if a vaccine were available now, it could take six to nine months to get enough Americans vaccinated to achieve widespread immunity.
His comments contradicted Mr. Trump, who said at a town hall event with ABC News on Tuesday that a vaccine could be ready in "three weeks, four weeks".
Conversely, the Big Ten Conference will try to play football in 2020.
The Big Ten conference announced Wednesday that it would be trying to play football as early as the weekend of October 23rd and stepped back from its leadership's decision a little over a month ago, not this fall due to the coronavirus pandemic To participate in the competition.
The move by chancellors and presidents representing the 14 universities of the Big Ten will quell some of the pressure – from celebrity coaches, parents, players, fans, and even President Trump – that the first Power 5 league is facing, the Plans Dropping for football in 2020 is also likely to spark new outrage among those who believe the league prioritizes profits, entertainment and some level of PR peace over health and safety.
In a statement on Wednesday morning, the league said that players, coaches, coaches, and other players who play on playing fields and practice fields will be tested for the virus daily and that any player who tests positive will be tested for at least 21 days by the Gambling is excluded.
Leagues that have returned, like the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big 12, have so far found it difficult to manage the epidemiological threats of the pandemic. A handful of games have been postponed, some teams have kept players out because of positive testing or contact tracing, and stadiums operate with little or no spectators in the stands.
Now the Big Ten are ready to join them and potentially save the seasons of some of the most iconic and lucrative names in college sports, including Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio State, Penn State and Wisconsin.
To make matters worse, health officials near some Big Ten locations, including Michigan State and Wisconsin, have begun harshly punishing or threatening students with harsh fines for parties. The problem is likely to be compounded by the pull of tailgates – sanctioned or not – ahead of the fall soccer games.
It wasn't until August 11 that the league, which had already switched to a pure conference plan, said that it would not compete until at least 2021.
Federal health authorities outline preparations for distributing a vaccine when it is ready.
Federal officials on Wednesday set out details of their preparations for administering a future coronavirus vaccine to Americans, saying that they will begin distribution within 24 hours of any approval or emergency clearance and that their goal is to ensure that no American is "a single." Cent has to pay “their own pocket.
Officials, who are part of the federal government's Operation Warp Speed - the efforts of several agencies to quickly get a coronavirus vaccine available to Americans – also said the timing of a vaccine is still unclear.
"We're dealing with a world of great uncertainty. We don't know when we'll have a vaccine, we don't know the quantities, we don't know the effectiveness of those vaccines," said Paul Mango, deputy chief of staff for policy in the division for Health and human services.
Officials said they were planning to distribute a vaccine first – possibly in an emergency – and to a limited group of high-priority people, such as B. Healthcare workers for the last three months of this year and into next year. The Department of Defense provides logistical support in planning the shipping and storage of vaccines, as well as tracking who received the vaccine and whether they received a dose or two.
Mr Mango also said that while the details are still being worked out, the government intends to make the vaccines available to Americans at no cost out of pocket. All the companies closest to getting a vaccine to market have done billions in deals with the federal government either to develop their candidate or to buy the doses for distribution to the public.
The government is also working on creating a database to try to solve the complicated process of immunizing potentially millions of Americans and keeping track of when they needed a second dose and what vaccine.
Three drug companies are testing vaccine candidates in late-stage trials in the United States. One of those companies, Pfizer, said it could apply for an emergency permit as early as October, while the other two, Moderna and AstraZeneca, said they would have something before the end of the year.
The Jerusalem Great Synagogue, the venerable institution where Israeli prime ministers and presidents prayed, announced on its website on Wednesday that it would be closed for the first time in its more than half a century of history during the Jewish holy day.
As Israel's infection rates have grown to be among the worst in the world, the government has ordered a second nationwide lockdown, scheduled to begin on Friday afternoon, hours before the eve of the Jewish New Year holidays and lasting at least three weeks, on the Lent of Yom Kippur and the Sukkot festival .
The government issued new guidelines this week allowing a limited number of believers to pray in synagogues during the holy days. However, the Great Synagogue's Board of Trustees, which has been closed since the first lockdown in March, said its decision “followed much deliberation, considering the lack of knowledge, confusion, debates among experts and changing government policies. ”
The Great Synagogue was established in 1958 on nearby grounds just blocks from downtown West Jerusalem and moved to its current location in the 1980s.
Zalli Jaffe, the synagogue's president, said that by the end of Yom Kippur, the annual Day of Atonement, typically about 1,700 people would crowd into the sanctuary for the closing service.
Israeli schools will close on Thursday, less than three weeks after they reopened on a limited scale. The country's efforts to reopen schools in May ended badly.
An experimental drug shows promise in lowering blood levels of the virus in newly infected patients.
A single infusion of an experimental drug has significantly lowered the blood levels of the coronavirus in newly infected patients and reduced the chances of them having to be hospitalized, the drug maker said on Wednesday.
The drug is a monoclonal antibody, an artificial copy of an antibody made by a patient recovering from Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Many scientists hope that monoclonal antibodies will prove to be an effective treatment for Covid-19, but they are difficult to make and progress has been slow.
Eli Lilly's announcement was not accompanied by detailed data; Independent scientists have not yet reviewed the results, nor have they been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
The results are the interim results of a study sponsored by Eli Lilly and the National Institutes of Health. Officials of the N.I.H. Declined to comment until they verified the data more thoroughly.
Eli Lilly said 452 newly diagnosed patients received the monoclonal antibody or a placebo infusion. About 1.7 percent of those who received the drug were hospitalized compared to 6 percent of those who received a placebo – a 72 percent reduction in risk.
Coronavirus blood levels decreased in those who received the drug and their symptoms were less than those who received the placebo.
Any treatment shown so far to help coronavirus patients – the antiviral drug remdesivir and the steroid dexamethasone – is for critically ill hospital patients only. People with mild to moderate illnesses had to wait and hope for the best.
Dr. Myron Cohen, director of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was impressed.
"It's exciting," said Dr. Cohen, who was not involved in the study. The clinical trial seems rigorous and the results are "really convincing".
Other companies are also developing monoclonal antibodies against the coronavirus. "This is the opening of a door."
While colleges struggle to contain coronavirus outbreaks, administrators and local health officials are cracking down on fraternities and sororities, placing them under quarantine or threatening harsh party sanctions.
In Ingham County, Michigan, where Michigan State University is located, local health officials ordered residents of nearly two dozen brother and sisterhood homes, as well as several other group homes, to be quarantined for 14 days after the university added 160 new ones last week Reported Covid cases.
Members are only allowed to leave for medical care or other necessities that cannot be supplied. Violation is an offense that can be punished with up to six months in prison or a fine of up to $ 200, the Ingham County Health Department's order states.
"Although we know that many students are doing the right thing, we still see far too many social gatherings in the off-campus community, where individuals are in close contact with uncovered faces," said Mayor Aaron Stephens of East Lansing on Saturday Assignment.
The problem is likely to only get more complicated as schools in the Big Ten, including the state of Michigan, consider playing soccer this fall.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which is also part of the Big Ten and has seen a sharp rise last week, local health officials ordered that all Greek organizations with one or more cases among their members be quarantined. The order was for nearly two dozen organizations. The university also suspended face-to-face classes for two weeks and ordered students in two dormitories to quarantine and get tested.
And at SUNY Oswego, which had 70 new cases since Saturday, officials warned students that any party hosted by members of the fraternity or sisterhood, even if not technically sponsored by their Greek organizations, is still "too serious." individual and organizational penalties ”.
While there is no comprehensive data on outbreaks in Greek homes across the country, some states have tracked clusters associated with fraternities and sororities. Kansas has reported active clusters of cases in seven fraternities and sororities at Kansas State University, including one in which 19 people were infected. Colorado has identified a group of eight confirmed and five probable cases among people who have attended Kappa Sigma Brotherhood events at Colorado State University. And Michigan has detected multiple outbreaks in Greek homes at Michigan Technological University.
While dealing with current outbreaks, universities are also taking steps to prevent future outbreaks. In the past few days, several universities, including the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, Ohio State University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have announced that they will be canceling the spring break when students frequently travel to Florida and party for a week.
Russia's vaccine, which has been government-approved but has not yet been fully tested for safety and efficacy, won a new client in India on Wednesday, according to a Russian financial firm that supports the vaccine.
With a multitude of announcements, Russian officials have promoted the vaccine while expressing doubts about the safety of several alternatives made in the West. However, other countries have not followed Russia's lead in registering the Russian vaccine for the public prior to the completion of studies.
The Indian company, Dr. Reddys Laboratories, initially agreed to collaborate on clinical trials and, if successful, to buy 100 million cans, the Russian direct investment fund said in a joint statement with the company. Delivery could begin this year, "subject to the completion of successful trials" and registration in India.
"The partners will receive an effective and safe drug to fight the coronavirus," Kirill Dmitriev, director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, said in the statement. The Russian vaccine is made from a common human cold virus called adenovirus, which has been genetically engineered to contain proteins from the new coronavirus.
The Russian vaccine showed promising results in early studies and no serious side effects. In the past, some vaccine candidates who raised hope early on did not ultimately prevent disease or cause side effects. The only way to rigorously test a vaccine for safety and disease preventive effects is through a large, placebo-controlled clinical trial.
The participants in the late study in Russia received the first of two images on September 9th. An American clinical trial database shows that the organizers reported that the 40,000-person trial would end in six months.
Also on Wednesday, a group of health professionals is in Turkey received her first dose of a vaccine made in China, Demiroren news agency reported. Manufactured by the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech, the vaccine has been given to thousands of people around the world in ongoing clinical trials. Turkey has registered nearly 300,000 cases of the coronavirus, which is 358 cases per 100,000 people with at least 7,100 deaths.
Not all N.Y.C. Public school students receive live lessons daily while they are away.
Just hours before New York's 1.1 million students signed up for virtual school orientation Wednesday morning, the Department of Education announced a last-minute change in children's learning methods when classes officially begin on Monday.
The city announced earlier this summer that all schools must have at least one live class for all students every day they study at home. School principals and teachers have been warning for weeks that there simply aren't enough teachers to teach students in person and online. Each cohort has to be taught by different teachers. The city eventually acknowledged the enormous workforce crisis, which the school principals union estimates could include as many as 10,000 educators, and announced it on Tuesday evening.
For students in the hybrid educational model, where school is attended one to three days a week and the rest of the time is learned remotely, the new rule no longer requires schools to offer daily live classes when these students are away. The roughly 40 percent of students who choose to study remotely full-time continue to receive live lessons every day. Students can switch to full distance learning at any time.
If students on the hybrid model are not receiving live lessons, they can instead watch a recorded video of a lesson or complete assignments in their own time. The city also said schools that have enough staff to offer live classes every day on days when hybrid students are at home should do so.
The city's mayor has argued that reopening schools for personal education is critical to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable children in the city who have largely failed through distance learning. But the lack of face-to-face and live instruction has frustrated many parents.
On Wednesday, the mayor announced that the city would add more teachers in the fall to provide live lessons.
"What happens on the first day is not the same as two or four weeks later," he said, adding, "we will make adjustments."
The Mayor of N.Y.C. goes on vacation for a week with his employees in the town hall.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday that he was taking leave of his own staff at the town hall, including himself.
The directive would affect 495 mayors who would have to take unpaid week-long vacation at some point between October and March 2021. The mayor intends to work without pay while on vacation, his spokesman said.
Given the impact of the pandemic on the economy, he warned that he would have to lay off 22,000 workers if the unions working with the city fail to find such savings. Shouldn't the State of New York City give authority to fund its business with long-term debt of up to $ 5 billion? or should the federal government not provide assistance.
The vacation days would result in expected savings of $ 860,000, but the move has symbolic implications and could be a precursor to similar maneuvers to cut the budget.
US retail sales rose for the fourth straight month, but the rate is slowing.
US retail sales rose for the fourth straight year in August, but the rate of increase continued to slow, another sign that the recovery from the economic contraction caused by the pandemic remains fragile.
Consumer spending rose 0.6 percent last month, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, as Americans continued to spend on home computers, new cars, and online groceries. Spending in July was cut to 0.9 percent.
The sustained slow increase in The spending came against a grim economic backdrop, which became even darker when the additional $ 600 per week unemployment benefit expired and Congress failed to agree on new stimulus measures. Unemployment fell but remained high as major industries – such as hospitality, food and travel – remained largely closed.
Even so, the recovery continued to be strong for some retailers even as others struggled.
Sales of most clothing chains and department stores fell during the pandemic. Over the past six weeks, Lord & Taylor and Century 21, a key part of New York's bargain shopping, have joined the growing list of retailers who have filed for bankruptcy. Both plan to liquidate.
Nevertheless, national chains such as Best Buy, Dick & # 39; s Sporting Goods and West Elm reported leaps in sales this summer. Many Americans spend more on goods they could use at home or outside while social distancing. Dick & # 39; s reported a record quarter last month driven by outdoor activities like golf, camping and running.
India's total number of cases surpassed five million on Tuesday, less than a month after hitting the three million mark.
More than 82,000 coronavirus patients have died in India, but the country has had far fewer deaths per capita than many others. Doctors say this reflects India's younger and leaner population.
India reported 90,123 new cases on Tuesday and its 7-day daily average of new cases is more than 92,000.
The country went a hard line early on, placing all of its citizens under a national lockdown that was considered largely effective and largely followed. The restrictions were lifted in May when economic pressures led leaders to prioritize reopening and accept the risk of an increase in coronavirus infections.
However, the country's public health system is under severe strain and some sick patients cannot find hospital beds. Overcrowded cities, lockdown fatigue and lack of contact tracing all contribute to the spread of the virus, which has reached 1.3 billion people in every corner of the country.
India's total pollution is the second largest in the world after that of the USA.
In other developments around the world:
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A health officer out Madrid The regional government warned that the capital was preparing to impose "selective bans" in districts where the number of cases has risen significantly recently. Minister Antonio Zapatero said the region urgently "needs to flatten the curve" before colder weather sets in, which could help the virus spread faster. Spain has registered an average of 8,000 new cases a day over the past week, around a third of them in Madrid.
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Germany agreed to accept more than 1,500 refugees now living in GreeceDays after the fire, the Moria refugee camp on the island of Lesbos was destroyed. Around 12,000 people were left homeless in the fires, which the authorities said were caused by residents after protests against virus blocking measures. The move was seen as a challenge for other wealthy European nations to help contain the crisis.
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Six months after the country was locked to contain the spread of the virus, Nepal begins to welcome hikers and climbers again. The decision aims to revive the country's ailing economy, which is heavily dependent on mountain tourism. Hikers visiting Nepal are required to provide documentation showing that they have tested negative before flying into the country. And they need to be quarantined before traveling to tourist destinations. The country has reported nearly 60,000 cases, or 208 per 100,000 people and fewer than 400 deaths.
Reporting was by Peter Baker, Alan Blinder, Michael Corkery, Melissa Eddy, Mike Ives, Isabel Kershner, Andrew E. Kramer, Gina Kolata, Sapna Maheshwari, Raphael Minder, Benjamin Müller, Richard C. Paddock, Linda Qiu, Gretchen Reynolds, contributed. Dana Rubinstein, Eliza Shapiro, Bhadra Shrama, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Glenn Thrush, Marc Tracy, Noah Weiland and Sameer Yasir.
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