BitGou: Tuesday Morning Briefing: Johnson & Johnson pauses coronavirus vaccine trials

What you need to know about the coronavirus today

J&J pauses vaccine trials
Johnson & Johnson said it had temporarily paused its COVID-19 vaccine candidate clinical trials due to an unexplained illness in a study participant, delaying one of the highest profile efforts to contain the pandemic.

The participant’s illness is being reviewed and evaluated by an independent data and safety monitoring board as well as the company’s clinical and safety physicians.

J&J said that such pauses are normal in big trials. It said the “study pause” in giving doses of the vaccine candidate was different from a “regulatory hold” required by health authorities.

Fauci urges masks, avoiding mass gatherings
As President Donald Trump held his first campaign rally since disclosing he contracted the coronavirus, top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said the United States faced a “whole lot of trouble” if it did not encourage universal wearing of face masks and avoid mass gatherings.

“We have a baseline of infections now that varies between 40 and 50,000 per day. That’s a bad place to be when you’re going into the cooler weather of the fall and the colder weather of the winter,” Fauci told CNBC

“We’ve got to turn this around.”

No lockdowns in Russia despite spike
Russia on Tuesday reported record high daily coronavirus cases and deaths, pushing total infections to 1,326,178, but authorities said they do not plan to impose lockdowns across the vast country.

Anna Popova, head of the consumer safety watchdog, said Russia saw no need to impose restrictions on economic activity in response to the spike in cases.

“Despite a growing number of cases, today in Russia we are not talking about blocking the economy, suspending some business activities, some sectors of the economy, because we see no reason to do this.”

France and Netherlands mull more curbs
President Emmanuel Macron met senior cabinet ministers on Tuesday to discuss possible further restrictions to tackle a second coronavirus wave sweeping across France.

The country reported more than 1,500 COVID-19 patients in intensive care on Monday, a level not seen since late May.

Prime Minister Jean Castex has refused to rule out local lockdowns. “Nothing should be off the table when you see the situation facing our hospitals.”

A new round of social restrictions will be announced by the Dutch government on Tuesday evening, including the possible closure of cafes and restaurants.

Virus spreads in Argentina
Argentina surpassed 900,000 cases of coronavirus, with strong growth of infections in large populated centers in the interior of the country after months of the virus being concentrated in Buenos Aires and its suburbs.

The government late last week tightened restrictions on the movement of people in 18 provinces for two weeks due to the growth of cases.

More than 90% of the intensive-care beds at the Centenario hospital in the city of Rosario, 300 km north of Buenos Aires, are occupied by COVID-19 patients.

Track the global spread with our interactive graphic.

Breakingviews - Corona Capital: Bailouts, Vaccines, Deficits.
Read concise views on the pandemic’s financial fallout from Breakingviews columnists across the globe.

Reuters reporters and editors around the world are investigating the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

We need your help to tell these stories. Our news organization wants to capture the full scope of what’s happening and how we got here by drawing on a wide variety of sources.

Are you a government employee or contractor involved in coronavirus testing or the wider public health response? Are you a doctor, nurse or health worker caring for patients? Have you worked on similar outbreaks in the past? Has the disease known as COVID-19 personally affected you or your family? Are you aware of new problems that are about to emerge, such as critical supply shortages?

We need your tips, firsthand accounts, relevant documents or expert knowledge. Please contact us at coronavirus@reuters.com.

We prefer tips from named sources, but if you’d rather remain anonymous, you can submit a confidential news tip. Here’s how.

U.S.

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett will face the first of two days of direct questioning from senators, as Democrats try to make the case that her confirmation would threaten healthcare for millions of Americans. The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing presents Barrett with a chance to respond to Democratic lawmakers who have been unified in opposing her primarily on what they say would be her role in undermining the Obamacare healthcare law and its protection for patients with pre-existing conditions.

President Donald Trump will travel to Pennsylvania for his second campaign rally since his bout with COVID-19, while Democratic rival Joe Biden is heading to Florida as the fight for the White House focuses on two of the biggest battleground states.

Sylvia Padilla spent last Thursday checking food pantries in Lubbock, Texas for groceries to feed herself, her daughter and three-year-old grandson. Some places were closed, others had nothing available. Outside the shuttered St. John’s United Methodist Church, Padilla, 50, recounted her struggle to survive during the economic disaster that the novel coronavirus pandemic had dumped upon her, choking words out through tears of fear and frustration.

COVID Science

COVID-19 antibodies last at least three months
People infected with COVID-19 develop antibodies targeting the new coronavirus that last for at least three months, according to two reports published on Thursday in Science Immunology. The two studies, together involving nearly 750 patients, both point to immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies, which start showing up well after an infection begins, as the longest-lasting.

COVID-19 symptoms linger for months for many
Three months after becoming ill, many COVID-19 patients still have symptoms, two studies confirm, and the more severe the initial infections, the higher the odds of persistent problems. In Spain, doctors checked back with 108 patients, including 44 who had been severely ill. At 12 weeks after diagnosis, 76% still reported after-effects, with 40% reporting three or more coronavirus-related health issues, doctors said in a paper posted on Thursday on medRxiv ahead of peer review.