Health News at Your Fingertips

Sanofi SA and GlaxoSmithKline Plc said they are in advanced discussions with the European Commission to supply up to 300 million doses of the drugmakers’s experimental Covid-19 vaccine.

The doses would be manufactured in European countries including France, Belgium, Germany and Italy.

Sanofi is leading the clinical development of the vaccine and expects to launch a pivotal trial by the end of this year.

Florida reported another record increase in Covid-19 deaths on Friday.

The state health department said Florida registered 257 fatalities, a record for the fourth straight day despite predictions that the U.S. coronavirus epicenter could be shifting to the Midwest.

The one-day loss of life in the state was roughly equivalent to the number of passengers on a single-aisle airplane.

Florida also reported 9,007 new cases, bringing its total infections to over 470,000, the second highest in the country behind California.

It is among at least 18 states that saw cases more than double in July, when almost 25,000 people in the United States died of Covid-19.

The Prince of Wales gave a “morale boost” to health workers as he visited Caithness General Hospital in the north of Scotland.

Staff at the hospital in Wick said they were “thrilled” to meet Charles, who is known as the Duke of Rothesay while in Scotland.

During his visit on Friday, Charles thanked staff for their “dedication and hard work throughout the Covid-19 pandemic”, according to NHS Highland.

Professor Boyd Robertson, chairman of the health board, said: “We were delighted to welcome His Royal Highness The Duke of Rothesay to Caithness General Hospital.

“His Royal Highness spent time chatting with our staff to thank them for their efforts over the last few months and heard their experiences of working across a variety of health and social care roles during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“All of the staff that met him were delighted and it has given the entire team a morale boost after such a demanding and challenging period.

“I would like to thank His Royal Highness most sincerely for his visit to Caithness General Hospital.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported a record increase in global coronavirus cases on Friday, with the total rising by 292,527.

The biggest increases were from the United States, Brazil, India and South Africa, where deaths rose by a total of 6,812.

The previous WHO record for new cases was 284,196 on 24 July.

Deaths rose by 9,753 on 24 July, the second largest one-day increase ever.

Deaths have been averaging 5,200 a day in July, up from an average of 4,600 a day in June.

Northern Ireland could lead the way for spectators to return to football matches after a limited crowd attended the Irish Cup final in Belfast this evening.

Just 500 supporters attended the final clash at the National Stadium at Windsor Park in a season that was plunged into uncertainty by the coronavirus pandemic.

It was the first football match played in the United Kingdom since lockdown at which the players were cheered on by their own supporters.

Fans were reminded to physically distance as they arrived by stewards wearing personal protective equipment.

The death toll globally from coronavirus has surpassed 674,000, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tracker.

The figure is now at 674,038, with the US having the most deaths at 152,074, followed by Brazil with 91,263.

Donald Trump is on his way to Florida for an event with sheriffs, a round table on Covid response and storm preparedness and a fundraiser at a golf club in nearby Belleair.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis is on his way to meet the president to request authorisation for more troop assistance in the Covid-19 crisis, which is affecting the state badly.

It comes after it emerged that the US is no closer to an agreed national grand plan for tackling the Covid-19 outbreak that has killed more than 150,000 people in America and is still “raging out of control”.

After questioning the public health experts on the White House coronavirus taskforce, there is no change from what the special coronavirus House committee chairman James Clyburn said when he criticised the Trump administration, saying it had “still not developed and implemented a national strategy to protect the American people” after more than six months of the outbreak.

Families in the US trying to squeeze in a summer vacation before school starts better do some homework on Covid-19 restrictions before loading up the minivan.

The web of state and local quarantines is growing more tangled by the day: New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have ordered visitors from a whopping 34 states to quarantine for 14 days.

Chicago and Washington DC, have each singled out travellers from about two dozen states. Other states have their own lists. Some have an option for visitors to get tested instead.

Kathy Kutrubes, owner of a travel agency in Boston, said: “Complicated doesn’t begin to describe it. I feel sorry for people.

“They just want to go to Cape Cod. They want to go to Vermont. I don’t know what to tell them. People are pretty much left on their own to figure out.”

The restrictions and maybe the confusion too are contributing to a sharp drop in travel, dealing a blow to a key industry.

Before the outbreak, Americans were expected to take 2.3 billion domestic trips this year, according to the US Travel Association.

But that is expected expected to drop about 30% to 1.6 billion, the lowest level since 1991. Normally nearly a third of domestic travel happens in the summer.

Abroad, a drop-off in tourism from US visitors and restrictions on crossing borders have also led many travel-related businesses to wonder if they will survive.

The Polish government is considering extra restrictions for the parts of the country with the most new coronavirus cases after the number rose by a record amount for the second successive day.

“Limits could cover certain counties, the ones that have the biggest problems when it comes to a rise in infections,” government spokesman Piotr Muller told a press conference without specifying the areas.

Of the new cases, 227 were in the Silesia region, where there has been an outbreak among coal miners.

Muller also said that restrictions were unlikely to be nationwide and that the government would explore imposing quarantine measures on travellers from certain countries also facing a rapid growth in new cases.

The health minister, Lukasz Szumowski, told private broadcaster Polsat News that new regulations could include an obligation in some counties to register weddings with authorities and inform them about who was attending.

Szumowski said he expected the number of new daily cases to remain around 500-600 during the coming week before starting to fall.

French health authorities reported 1,346 new confirmed coronavirus infections on Friday, which took the total to 187,919.

New cases are above 1,300 per day for the third day in a row, the highest since late April.

The health ministry also said that the number of people in intensive care units due to the disease fell by a further 10 to 371.

On Thursday, that figure had increased by just one, which was the first daily increase after falling every day since 9 April.

In the past 24 hours, 11 people died from the virus infection, taking the total to 30,265. In the past three days the number of dead per day was 16, 15 and 14.