October 20 coronavirus news

By Emma Reynolds, Joshua Berlinger, Adam Renton, Meg Wagner and Melissa Macaya, CNN

Updated 12:01 a.m. ET, October 21, 2020
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6:35 a.m. ET, October 20, 2020

Hong Kong announces minor relaxation of social distancing measures after drop in cases

From CNN's Jadyn Sham in Hong Kong

People in Hong Kong wait to cross a road on October 18.
People in Hong Kong wait to cross a road on October 18. Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images

Hong Kong has announced a minor relaxation of its social distancing measures after cases in the region dropped for seven days, its Secretary for Food and Health announced.

Professor Sophia Chan announced the news after there were no community outbreaks or untraceable cases in the past three days.

The changes mean that, from October 23:

  • Local tour groups can resume with up to 30 people
  • Wedding banquets, conferences and meetings can take place with up to 50 people
  • Team sports can resume in swimming pools
  • Live performances can resume in museums

However, Hong Kong's four-person rule, midnight curfew and mandatory mask-wearing regulations have been extended until October 29.

Chan said the department continues to prepare for the possibility of a fourth wave of the virus. 

4:58 a.m. ET, October 20, 2020

Senior Covid-19 patients suffer "brain fog" in drawn-out recovery

From Judith Graham, Kaiser Health News

"Lord, give me back my memory."

For months, as Marilyn Walters struggled to recover from Covid-19, she has repeated this prayer day and night.

Like other older adults who've become critically ill from the coronavirus, Walters, 65, describes what she calls "brain fog" -- difficulty putting thoughts together, problems with concentration, the inability to remember what happened a short time before.

This sudden cognitive dysfunction is a common concern for seniors who've survived a serious bout of Covid-19.

"Many older patients are having trouble organizing themselves and planning what they need to do to get through the day," said Dr. Zijian Chen, medical director of the Center for Post-Covid Care at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. "They're reporting that they've become more and more forgetful."

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4:36 a.m. ET, October 20, 2020

Deadline looms for Manchester to comply with UK government's anti-epidemic restrictions

From CNN’s Luke McGee in London

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham speaks to the media outside the Central Library in Manchester, England, on October 15.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham speaks to the media outside the Central Library in Manchester, England, on October 15. Martin Rickett/Pool/Getty Images

The British government has set a noon (7 a.m. ET) deadline to reach an agreement with Manchester today on enacting anti-epidemic measures.

Manchester authorities, including Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burham, have been at odds with Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government about how to handle the recent spike in cases -- and whether to move the city from the UK's second tier of restrictions to its most severe third tier.

“The deteriorating public health situation in Greater Manchester means that we need to take action urgently,” Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said in a statement on Monday.

Burnham has resisted the government's efforts to increase the severity of his city's measures, urging for more financial measures to protect workers placed under stricter rules.

However, Johnson's government has called on Manchester authorities to enact lockdown-like measures in order to stop the virus from spreading. The Prime Minister said he would intervene if regional leaders could not reach a deal with the national government.

“There are now more COVID-19 patients in Greater Manchester Hospitals than in the whole of the South West and South East combined. But, unfortunately, despite recognizing the gravity of the situation, local leaders have been so far unwilling to take the action that is required to get this situation under control,” Jenrick said in the statement.
“I have written to local leaders this evening to make clear that if we cannot reach agreement by midday tomorrow (Tuesday) then I must advise the Prime Minister that despite our best endeavors we’ve been unable to reach agreement.” 
4:35 a.m. ET, October 20, 2020

Covid-19 cases are climbing in more than half of US states. These are some of the factors that helped drive the surge

From CNN's Christina Maxouris

A health worker swabs a patient at a Covid-19 testing site in Roxbury, Massachusetts, on October 15.
A health worker swabs a patient at a Covid-19 testing site in Roxbury, Massachusetts, on October 15. Matt Stone/ MediaNews Group/Boston Herald/Getty Images

Covid-19 numbers are once again climbing back up across the United States, with more than half of US states reporting a rise in new infections in what experts say is the dreaded fall surge.

And there's several factors that got the country here, one expert told CNN.

Among them are college and school reopenings, Dr. Tom Inglesby, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told CNN Monday night. But that's not all.

"I think there's some, what people might say, pandemic fatigue, in some places people not really following the advice, the public health guidance that's out there -- masking, or distancing, or telecommuting. There's more people going back to large gatherings, family gatherings."

And those gatherings will likely multiply as the holidays approach and more people transition indoors, where the virus can spread more easily.

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3:50 a.m. ET, October 20, 2020

Analysis: China's Covid success compared to Europe shows lockdowns are the first step, not a solution

Analysis from CNN's James Griffiths

People wearing face masks as a preventive measure against Covid-19 walk outside a shopping mall complex during the country's national "Golden Week" holiday in Beijing, China on October 2.
People wearing face masks as a preventive measure against Covid-19 walk outside a shopping mall complex during the country's national "Golden Week" holiday in Beijing, China on October 2. Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images

As much of Europe stares down the barrel of renewed coronavirus lockdowns, and a potentially miserable -- and deadly -- winter to come, China is going from strength to strength.

On Monday, the country posted positive economic growth for the second quarter in a row, underlining how speedily the world's second-largest economy has recovered. That comes in the wake of an apparently successful experiment with allowing mass domestic travel, as millions of people criss-crossed China for the Golden Week national holiday.

For many in Europe, China's approach to the coronavirus is characterized by the initial draconian, 76-day lockdown seen in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where cases of the virus were first detected late last year.

But other parts of the country never saw such stringent restrictions, even during the early stages of the pandemic when similar lockdowns were introduced in cities throughout China.

China's success in controlling the coronavirus is not so much a product of those early control measures -- though these have been utilized effectively to halt regional flare-ups -- but how the country handles things after people are allowed to move around again.

Read the full analysis:

3:27 a.m. ET, October 20, 2020

UK signs contract to conduct first coronavirus human challenge trials

From CNN’s Mick Krever, Phil Black and Sharon Braithwaite in London 

The United Kingdom government has signed a contract with Open Orphan allowing the Irish pharmaceutical services company to conduct the first human challenge studies for the novel coronavirus, in which healthy volunteers are deliberately infected with the virus in a controlled setting. Some participants will receive an experimental vaccine.   

Up to 19 volunteers at a time will take part in the trials, which will be held at the Royal Free Hospital in London, which houses a biosafety ward. The trials will be run by hVIVO, a subsidiary of Open Orphan, in partnership with Imperial College London. 

“We look forward to working with our partners to develop a Covid-19 human challenge study model which will be used to safely accelerate the discovery of effective vaccines and antivirals against Covid-19,” Open Orphan Chairman Cathal Friel said Tuesday in a statement.  

The first steps will take place early next year, the company said. It expects to be able to test the efficacy of up to three vaccine candidates sometime next year. 

In a statement, UK Business Secretary Alok Sharma said the “ground-breaking but carefully controlled studies” mark an “important next step” in Britain’s fight against coronavirus.  

“We are doing everything we can to fight coronavirus, including backing our best and brightest scientists and researchers in their hunt for a safe and effective vaccine,” he added.  

While the study will still need to get ethics approval from UK regulators, England's Heath Research Authority said it has already set up an ethics committee to assess any challenge trial proposals. 

3:09 a.m. ET, October 20, 2020

Blood from sickest Covid-19 patients may be the best for convalescent plasma treatment

From CNN Health’s Shelby Lin Erdman

A laboratory technician shows a bag of frozen blood plasma from a donor who has recovered from Covid-19 at The Blood and Tissue Bank Foundation in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on October 5.
A laboratory technician shows a bag of frozen blood plasma from a donor who has recovered from Covid-19 at The Blood and Tissue Bank Foundation in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on October 5. Jaime Reina/AFP/Getty Images

Blood from the most severely ill Covid-19 patients may be the best for use in convalescent plasma therapy, according to a new study from Johns Hopkins University.

Doctors have been using plasma, the liquid part of the blood that contains antibodies capable of fighting the virus, from recovered coronavirus patients to help treat Covid-19.

The researchers looked at samples of plasma from 126 Covid-19 survivors and found a wide variability in antibody levels and their ability to neutralize the coronavirus, the Johns Hopkins team wrote in their report, which was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Age and gender could be important, too. Older men who were hospitalized with Covid-19 and recovered are “strong candidates” for plasma donation, the analysis suggests.

“Three factors were associated with stronger antibody responses: having been sick enough with COVID-19 to be hospitalized, being older, and being male,” the report said.

The sicker a person is with the virus, the stronger the antibody response, studies have shown. 

“We propose that sex, age, and severity of disease should be used to guide the selection of donors for convalescent plasma transfer studies because we found that these were significant patient characteristics that not only predicted the amount of antibody but the quality of that antibody,” Sabra Klein, a professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, who led the study team, said in a statement.

As clinical trials of convalescent plasma therapy are still ongoing, the researchers said doctors have had few guidelines on how to pick the best Covid-19 survivors with the strongest antibody responses to use in the treatment.

Several other studies have also found that survivors whose disease was severe enough to warrant hospitalization have more antibodies to the coronavirus’ spike protein, a surface protein which enables the virus to attach and invade human cells.

4:58 a.m. ET, October 20, 2020

Flood-hit Indian state on alert for coronavirus spread in relief camps

From CNN's Sandi Sidhu in Hong Kong

National Disaster Response Force personnel rescue a baby and her family from a waterlogged house at Hafiz Baba Nagar at Hyderabad in India's southern state of Telangana, on October 18.
National Disaster Response Force personnel rescue a baby and her family from a waterlogged house at Hafiz Baba Nagar at Hyderabad in India's southern state of Telangana, on October 18. Xinhua/Getty Images

Nineteen people have tested positive for Covid-19 in relief camps set up for people who escaped heavy flooding this month in the southern Indian state of Telangana.

The percentage of those testing positive appears to be low, however. Etala Rajender, Telangana's health minister, said Sunday that 2,000 refugees had been tested.

The camps are currently home to thousands of people who lost their homes or were displaced by the inundation, which killed at least 70 people. But relief camps are often cramped, meaning that the virus can spread easily -- especially if proper sanitation is not guaranteed.

However, authorities have taken precautions to stop others from contracting Covid-19, said Somesh Kumar, a senior state government official.

Kumar said Tuesday that the number of people who tested positive was low "because we took all the precautions to prevent the spread (of the virus)."

India's epidemic: India is struggling to combat one of the world's worst outbreaks of Covid-19. Nearly 7.6 million people in the country have contracted the virus since the pandemic began, and more than 115,000 have died, according to India's Health Ministry

2:03 a.m. ET, October 20, 2020

Australia quarantine blood-testing blunder prompts calls for hundreds to take HIV test

From CNN's Julia Hollingsworth

More than 200 former residents of coronavirus quarantine facilities in Australia are being urged to test for blood-transmitted diseases, including HIV, after authorities admitted they used the same blood-testing devices for multiple guests.

It's the latest in a series of Covid-19 setbacks to hit the country and the state of Victoria in particular. Earlier breaches at Victoria quarantine hotels led to a Covid-19 outbreak in Melbourne, prompting the country's second biggest city to spend months under a strict lockdown.

In a statement Monday, Victorian health agency, Safer Care Victoria, said it was contacting 243 people who had a blood glucose level test before August 20 as there was a risk of cross-contamination and blood-borne viruses, including HIV.

"The clinical risk of infection is low. However, for reassurance, access to confidential testing will be arranged," Safer Care Victoria said in a statement.

Victoria has reported more than 20,000 coronavirus cases, including over 800 deaths, making it the Covid-19 hotspot of Australia. The country has reported more than 27,400 cases and at least 905 deaths in total, according to Johns Hopkins University.

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