Coronavirus Watch

Global Statistics

The novel coronavirus has infected more than 67,8 million people worldwide and killed more than 1.54million.

More than 15,3 million confirmed cases have been reported in the US since the pandemic began, and more than 290,000 people have died. As the US nears an average of 200,000 Covid-19 cases a day, experts say “behavior and cold weather” are behind the current surge gripping American communities. And with the recent spike in cases, record hospitalizations have followed. On Sunday, 101,487 patients were in the hospital with the virus, according to the COVID-19 Tracking Project — the fifth consecutive day the US surpassed 100,000 hospitalizations. On Saturday, the US reported more than one million new cases of Covid-19 within the first five days of December.

Brazil has recorded 20,371 new coronavirus cases and 376 deaths on Monday. The South American country has now registered 6,623,911 cases since the pandemic began, while its official death toll has risen to 177,317, according to ministry data.

Britain’s healthcare providers are gearing up to start giving the first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, less than a week after the United Kingdom became the first Western nation to approve a Covid-19 vaccine. Vaccinations are set to begin on Tuesday in England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland said it would start administering the vaccine early in the week but did not specify which day. The vaccine needs to be kept at -70C (-94F) and only lasts five days in a regular fridge. For that reason, it will first be administered in 50 hospitals. About 800,000 doses are expected to be available within the first week.

Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous nation, has reported the highest coronavirus caseload in Southeast Asia. More than 575,000 Covid-19 infections, including 17,740 deaths, have been confirmed in the country, according to Johns Hopkins University.

South Africa’s COVID-19 infections have increased to 817 878 with 3 313 new cases identified in the last 24 hours. 43 more people have died of the virus, taking the country’s death toll to 22 249.

Zimbabwe has 10 839 confirmed cases after 121 new local cases were recorded. # new deaths were recorded to brin the total deaths to 294.  8 972 recoveries have been recorded and the national recovery rate is 82.8%.

WHO looks at giving Covid-19 to healthy people to speed up vaccine trial

The World Health Organization is holding discussions on Monday about the feasibility of trials in which healthy young volunteers are deliberately infected with coronavirus to hasten vaccine development – amid questions over whether they should go ahead given the promising data from the frontrunner vaccine candidates. Some scientists have reservations about exposing volunteers to a virus for which there is no cure, although there are treatments that can help patients. However, proponents argue that the risks of Covid-19 to the young and healthy are minimal, and the benefits to society are high.

Advocates of challenge trials said there is still merit in conducting them, despite new vaccine data. “Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca together can only produce enough vaccines in 2021 to immunise a third of humanity, and rich countries have already preordered most of their vaccines. Human challenge trials for next-generation vaccine candidates can help ensure there are enough vaccines for the whole world,” 1Day Sooner said. The Guardian

Metal Prices Asia/Europe/NY markets

07/12/2020

(Source: Kitco)