Biotechnology firm Moderna announced Monday that a preliminary analysis shows its experimental coronavirus vaccine is nearly 95 percent effective at preventing illness, including severe cases — a striking initial result that leaves the United States with the prospect that two coronavirus vaccines could be available on a limited basis by the end of the year.
The news comes a week after pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech lifted the stock market and people’s hopes with the news that their coronavirus vaccine was more than 90 percent effective.
At a briefing Monday, government officials predicted that if the two vaccines receive a regulatory greenlight, the first shots could be given in December, with enough to vaccinate 20 million people that month — and more becoming available into 2021 as production ramps up and other vaccine candidates may be successful.
The news is extremely promising but researchers still have some questions including how long will the protection of the vaccine last? Moderna has said it can produce 20 million doses by the end of the year — enough for 10 million people to get both shots.
No, Donald Trump Jr., the coronavirus has not ‘magically’ gone away now that the 2020 election has passed. With the virus surging in so many places both here and around the world, I wanted to create a way to share news related to the pandemic in an abbreviated manner. For more information on any of the stories below, please feel free to click the links. Per Johns Hopkins Hospital coronavirus tracking, the U.S. has now reported 10,353,604 cases of COVID-19 resulting in 240,688 deaths. • CBS News: Texas became the first state to surpass 1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday. The second-most populous U.S. state, Texas now has more coronavirus cases than all of Italy, which was previously one of the major hot spots of the virus. California is close behind with over 986,000 confirmed cases, as is Florida with more than 852,000. • ABC News: Faced with more than 2,000 new daily COVID-19 cases in his state and hospitals at capacity, Utah’s Gov. Gary Herbert has declared a state of emergency and issued a mandate for all residents to wear masks in public until further notice. Herbert’s announcement implored all state residents “to do everything in your power to stop the spread of this disease.” • CNN: Following the positive news regarding the effectiveness of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN’s Jake Tapper that an average American could potentially have access to a coronavirus vaccine by April of 2021.
Dr. Anthony Fauci tells @jaketapper that an average American could potentially have access to a coronavirus vaccine by April of 2021. pic.twitter.com/u2yn1hI0Mp
• Pink News: Brazil’s homophobic president Jair Bolsonaro has told his country to accept coronavirus and stop dealing with it like “a country of fags”. The far-right leader made the remarks as his country has suffered over 5.7 million infections and 163,000 deaths from coronavirus. “We have to stop being a country of fags… We have to face up to it and fight. I hate this faggot stuff.” • Nevada Current: With the coronavirus surging in Nevada and nearly every state in the nation, Gov. Steve Sisolak urged people Tuesday to “to operate in a ‘Stay at Home 2.0’ mentality to get things under control so our public health response infrastructure can catch up.” Nevada has seen more than 1,300 cases a day over the most recent seven day period and hospitalization rates not seen since August. • The Hill: A top health department official in Wisconsin says that the state is nearing a tipping point at which some patients who need lifesaving care will be unable to receive it due to overcrowding in hospitals resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak.
Donald Trump leaves the hospital after treatment for the coronavirus (photo: public domain) Although Donald Trump told his followers on the campaign trail about the coronavirus – “By the way, on November 4, you won’t hear about it anymore” – sadly we are. For the second day in a row, the U.S. has reported over 100,000 new cases of the virus in a single day. From the New York Times:
The country burst across the 100,000 threshold of reported cases a day earlier, the first time it had done so since the pandemic began. The total count of new infections Wednesday was at least 107,000, according to a New York Times database.
On Thursday evening, the county in the U.S. hit 102,297, and was expected to go up.
Twenty-three states have recorded more cases in the past week than in any other seven-day stretch.
Five states — Colorado, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota and Nebraska — set single-day case records on Wednesday. Cases were also mounting in the Mountain West and even in the Northeast, which over the summer seemed to be getting the virus under control.
Until November 4th., Fake News Media is going full on Covid, Covid, Covid. We are rounding the turn. 99.9%.
Adult performer Quin Quire (images via screen capture)
Porn performer Quin Quire (nope, never heard of him) raised eyebrows on Sunday when he tweeted his opinion that “Covid 19 isn’t deadly enough.”
Quire’s tweet read, “Covid 19 isn’t deadly enough in my opinion. It’s good to kill off the weak from a population to ensure the BEST survival for the group. If it kills me it’s my time but I’m tired of letting the weakest people tell us how to live our lives. F**k you.”
A few minutes later, he followed that up with, “Meditate on, and accept the idea of your own death. Your life will be better for it. Happy #DayoftheDead.”
For those who don’t know, Day of the Dead (Dia de Muertos) is a Mexican holiday recognized on November 1 and encourages remembering friends and family who have died. How Quire conflated remembering those who have passed with giving a thumbs up to the coronavirus isn’t clear.
It’s notable that Quire limited replies to the original tweet to people he mentioned in the tweet. Of course, he didn’t mention anyone in particular in the message.
The Twitterverse wasn’t sure if Quire, who refers to himself as an “adult film star since ’12,” might have been hacked, was serious in his messaging, maybe having a bad reaction to medications, simply cold-hearted, or just looking for attention.
As Donald Trump tells his campaign rally attendees that the U.S. has “rounded the curve” of the coronavirus pandemic, actual facts say differently as nearly 100,000 new coronavirus cases were reported on Friday – a new daily record. From the Washington Post:
The milestone — the first daily tally above 90,000 — came a week after the country passed 80,000 cases in a day, breaking the record set during a summer case surge concentrated in the Sun Belt. Experts have long predicted another spike in cases as cold weather sends many indoors and aids the virus’s spread.
The holiday travel season has public health officials worried too. And cases are surging in every swing state that is crucial to next week’s presidential election.
Total confirmed cases in the U.S. topped 9 million Friday, with the last 1 million recorded in just over two weeks. Increased testing alone does not explain the jump in cases; current coronavirus hospitalizations are steadily rising again, though they have yet to surpass the summer’s peak.
On Thursday night, Donald Trump Jr. declared that coronavirus deaths had dropped to “almost nothing” and “we’ve gotten control of this.”
Donald Trump Jr. falsely claimed on Thursday that the number of Americans dying from the coronavirus amounts to “almost nothing.” But roughly 1,000 Americans died from Covid-19 on the day he appeared on Fox News to downplay the U.S. death toll. https://t.co/AdHy9Yx9wKpic.twitter.com/9Cy0r9yZId
(screen capture) According to a new Stanford University study, 30,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and more than 700 deaths can be traced to attendees of 18 recent Trump campaign rallies. From the Washington Post:
The study, released Friday by Stanford economics professor B. Douglas Bernheim and three doctoral students, examined rallies staged by Trump between June 20 and Sept. 30 and looked at the trajectory of cases in the counties in which they were held.
“Our analysis strongly supports the warnings and recommendations of public health officials concerning the risk of COVID-19 transmission at large group gatherings, particularly when the degree of compliance with guidelines concerning the use of masks and social distancing is low,” the authors said.
“The communities in which Trump rallies took place paid a high price in terms of disease and death.”
The Trump campaign told the Washington Post that the idea that social distancing practices at its rallies are low was ridiculous.
7-day rolling average of cases as of Oct. 28 (graphic via Washington Post) Coronavirus cases are on the rise in every battleground state with just four days to the presidential election. From the Washington Post:
Coronavirus cases are surging in every competitive state before Election Day, offering irrefutable evidence against President Trump’s closing argument that the pandemic is nearly over and restrictions are no longer necessary.
In the 13 states deemed competitive by the Cook Political Report, the weekly average of new cases reported daily has jumped 45 percent over the past two weeks, from fewer than 21,000 on Oct. 14 to more than 30,000 on Oct. 28.
Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania have all hit new weekly average highs in recent days, and in Florida and Georgia, case counts are growing again after having fallen from summer highs.
According to the COVID Tracking Project, there are currently 46,905 Americans who are hospitalized with COVID-19, the highest number since August 14, and up about 50% from a month ago. Meanwhile, Donald Trump continues to hold campaign rallies across the nation where he tells supporters the U.S. has “rounded the corner” regarding the coronavirus. More at the Washington Post.
BREAKING—US has now surpassed 9,000,000 cases of #COVID19.
Accelerated since last month—newest mil only took 14 days.
1 mil April 28 2 mil June 10 3 mil July 7 4 mil July 23 5 mil Aug 8 6 mil Aug 30 7 mil Sept 25 8 mil Oct 15 9 mil Oct 29 pic.twitter.com/IxN5SJnsBe
"What happens is, you get it — if you get it, stay away, if you get it, you're gonna get better. And then you're gonna be immune. And it's a whole thing, and it goes away." — Trump makes a bunch of irresponsible claims about coronavirus pic.twitter.com/KOpojYI375
Matt Zarley and Leslie Ellis As a young actor, my first big break was being cast as the ‘Magical Mr. Mistoffelees’ in a brand new national touring company of the blockbuster Broadway musical CATS. While I was ‘living a dream’ over those years back in the 1980s, a nightmare called HIV/AIDS was taking thousands of lives from us. As a company, we wanted to do ‘something.’ So in 1987, we organized one of the first large-scale benefits performances by a touring company to help those affected by HIV. Amazingly, we raised over $36K in one night. Fast forward to today, and another viral pandemic is here. A few months ago, one of my former CATS castmates reached out to say, “Anyone want to do another fundraiser?” And so, we did.
“With Love, Now and Forever! Cats4CovidRelief” premiered on October 23 and will be available until October 28. At this writing, combining donations at Broadway Cares and YouTube, we’ve raised over $20,000 and counting Today, I’m talking to two of my closest CATS castmates, Grammy Award-winner Leslie Ellis and two-time OutMusic Award-winner Matt Zarley, about this recent company reunion. Hit the play button to hear us chat on this recent collaboration, reminisce about life on the road as young actors, and laugh a bit about the life-changing experience that was CATS. While our streaming event is scheduled to be removed from Broadway Cares website at the end of October 28, the video is still up at this writing on BC/EFA’s YouTube channel on an unlisted page here. Plus, you can see Matt’s gorgeous segment featuring Leslie singing “Memory” here.
Dmitriy Stuzhuk (images via Instagram) Dimitriy Stuzhuk, a social media fitness ‘influencer’ with over a million followers on Instagram, has died of COVID-19 after spending months denying the virus even existed. While he may have been in top physical shape, the 33-year-old sports and healthy living proponent was not able to survive the effects of the coronavirus. Four days ago, Stuzhuk told his followers in a post that he contracted the disease while traveling in Turkey. After a few days of body aches, a swollen neck, and a recurring cough, the fitness lifestyle returned home to Ukraine where underwent a battery of tests which showed he had tested positive for the coronavirus. While in the hospital he was given oxygen and additional medications. He was discharged after 8 days in the hospital, at which point he told his Instagram followers, “I was one who thought that Covid does not exist…until I got sick.” Accompanied by a photo wearing an oxygen mask, he added, “COVID IS NOT A SHORT-LIVED DISEASE! And it is heavy,” according to Sky News.
In his post, he described less-than-optimal conditions in his Ukraine hospital, which surprised him, and he promised a future post about “medicine in our country.” But that post wasn’t to be. His recovery proved to be a brief reprieve as he was rushed back to the hospital with cardiovascular complications due to the virus. His ex-wife, Sofia, shared on her own Instagram account that Stuzhuk was in “grave condition” and “unconscious.” Shortly thereafter, she announced Stuzhuk’s passing writing, “Only warm memories remain, three beautiful kids and valuable experience.” As you can see in recent Instagram posts, Stuzhuk appeared to be in peak physical shape. Ukraine has reported 307,301 cases of COVID-19 in the country resulting in 5,762 deaths. There have been 39,845,660 cases worldwide with 1,111,957 reported deaths at this writing according to Johns Hopkins University.
From the Washington Post: 
