Coronavirus Watch

Global Statistics

More than 18.70 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 704,385 have died.

The US has now recorded 4,918,420 total cases, with 160,290 deaths, making it by far the worst-hit country in the world. Monday was the second day to notch a slightly lower caseload, after a string of five days last week had all recorded more than 60 000 new daily infections.

Latin America and the Caribbean surpassed five million coronavirus cases on Monday as the World Health Organisation warned there might never be a “silver bullet” for the pandemic. Global infections passed 18 million, with Brazil driving the regional surge. South America’s largest country has recorded more than 2.80 million cases, and close to half the region’s 202 000 deaths. Among the top 10 countries with the most cases worldwide, five are from Latin America: Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Chile and Colombia.

Russia reported 5 159 new cases of the coronavirus on Tuesday, pushing its national tally to 861 423, the fourth largest in the world. The country’s coronavirus crisis response centre said 144 people had died in the past 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 14 351.

South Africa now has 521 318 coronavirus cases after 4,456 new cases were reported. 345 new deaths take the total number of fatalities to 8 884. The number of recoveries currently stands at 363 751 which translates to a recovery rate of 69, 8%.

The rate at which Covid-19 cases are increasing daily in South Africa has for the first time, since the beginning of the outbreak in March, started declining, according to official, reported data.

Gauteng, the province which has contributed by far the highest number of cases to the national total, is showing a marked decline in cases reported daily. Since early July, the average daily case increases over seven days rose above 10 000 new cases a day, rising to a high of more than 12 000, and now declining again slightly, to just over 10 000.

South Africa has one of the lowest crude mortality rates in the world, despite ranking fifth overall for the number of cumulative Covid-19 cases. The crude mortality rate is the percentage of deaths reported from confirmed cases.

The virus has infected over 44 000 and killed 896 people in Nigeria and there are 22,570 active cases.

89 new cases were recorded in Malawi to bring the total number of cases to 4,361.The number of deaths has reached 128 after 5 new deaths were recorded.

Zimbabwe has 4,221 confirmed cases after 146 new cases were recorded yesterday.  All of the new cases were local cases.  81 fatalities have been recorded, with 1 new fatality recorded in Bulawayo. Active cases stand at 2.902 and 1.238 people have recovered.

Novavax reports promising early trial results of COVID-19 vaccine

US biotech company Novavax on Tuesday announced its experimental COVID-19 vaccine elicited a robust immune response, producing more antibodies than are present in recovered patients, and with generally tolerable side-effects in its early-stage trial. The company was given $1.6 billion by the US government last month to develop and fund the drug under Operation Warp Speed — but in terms of timeline it is behind other firms including Moderna and AstraZeneca which have entered the final stages of their trials.

It reported in a press release that the phase one stage of its placebo-controlled trial involved 131 healthy adults aged 18-59 and two dose groups of five and 25 micrograms. Side effects included soreness at the site of injection, headache, fatigue and muscle pain. These were classified as mild to moderate, and none were severe. After the first dose, all subjects who got the vaccine developed antibodies that block SARS-CoV-2’s “spike protein,” which it uses to latch on to human cells.

Most also developed “neutralizing antibodies” which are more potent and prevent viruses from infecting cells. After a second dose given 28 days later, all participants had the more powerful neutralizing antibodies. Novavax reported that the lower dose performed comparably with the higher dose, which is important when it comes to mass production and because lower doses generally elicit fewer side effects. (France 24)

Metal Prices Asia/Europe/NY market

05/08/2020

(Source: Kitco)