First COVID-19 Vaccine Tested In US Poised For Final Testing

The first COVID-19 vaccine tested in the U.S. revved up people's immune systems just the way scientists had hoped, researchers reported Tuesday -- as the shots are poised to begin key final testing.

"No matter how you slice this, this is good news," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government's top infectious disease expert, told The Associated Press.

The experimental vaccine, developed by Fauci's colleagues at the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc., will start its most important step around July 27: A 30,000-person study to prove if the shots really are strong enough to protect against the coronavirus.

But Tuesday, researchers reported anxiously awaited findings from the first 45 volunteers who rolled up their sleeves back in March.

Sure enough, the vaccine provided a hoped-for immune boost.

Those early volunteers developed what are called neutralizing antibodies in their bloodstream -- molecules key to blocking infection -- at levels comparable to those found in people who survived COVID-19, the research team reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA

Florida virus deaths surge, vaccine test results released

Florida surpassed its daily record for coronavirus deaths Tuesday amid rising global worries of a resurgence, even as researchers announced that the first vaccine tested in the U.S. had worked to boost patients' immune systems.

Florida's 132 additional deaths topped a state mark set just last week. The figure likely includes deaths from the past weekend that had not been previously reported.

The new deaths raised the state's seven-day average to 81 per day, more than double the figure of two weeks ago and now the second-highest in the United States behind Texas. The worrisome figures were released just hours before the news about the experimental vaccine, developed by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc.

"No matter how you slice this, this is good news," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government's top infectious disease expert, told The Associated Press.

Small businesses worldwide fight for survival amid pandemic

Hour after hour in the dark, Chander Shekhar's mind raced ahead to morning.

More than three months had dragged by since the coronavirus forced Shekhar to shut down his business - a narrow, second-floor shop racked with vibrantly colored saris, on a block in New York's Jackson Heights neighborhood once thronged with South Asian immigrant shoppers. Today, finally, he and other merchants were allowed to reopen their doors.

But they were returning to an area where COVID-19 had killed hundreds, leaving sidewalks desolate and storefronts to gather dust. Now fears were fading. But no one knew what lay ahead on this late-June Monday as owners raised the gates at jewelry stores, tandoori restaurants and bridal shops clustered near Roosevelt Avenue's elevated train line. Overnight, the stress had woken Shekhar nine times.

"You cannot tell everybody it's safe to come and buy from us. This is an invisible enemy that nobody can see," said Shekhar, a father of two anxious about the shop's $6,000 monthly rent. "This is my baby," he said, of the store, Shopno Fashion.

"I have worked hard for this for more than 20 years, then I got my shop. It's not easy to leave it."

Amid the deaths of friends and customers, Shekhar is reluctant to complain. And he knows he is not alone. As economies around the world reopen, legions of small businesses that help define and sustain neighborhoods are struggling. The stakes for their survival are high: The U.N. estimates that businesses with fewer than 250 workers account for two-thirds of employment worldwide.

Masks for kids? Schools confront the politics of reopening

On one side are parents saying, let kids be kids. They object to masks and social distancing in classrooms this fall - arguing both could hurt their children's well-being- and want schools to reopen full time.

On the other side are parents and teachers who call for safeguards that would have been unimaginable before the coronavirus pandemic: part-time school, face coverings for all or a fully online curriculum.

The impassioned tug-of-wars have put educators in the middle of an increasingly politicized debate on how best to reopen schools this fall, a daunting challenge as infections spike in the U.S.

"Don't tell me my kid has to wear a mask," said Kim Sherman, a mother of three in the central California city of Clovis who describes herself as very conservative and very pro-Trump. "I don't need to be dictated to to tell me how best to raise my kids."

With many districts still finalizing how they may reopen, President Donald Trump has ramped up pressure to get public schools back in business, threatening to withhold federal funding from those that don't resume in-person classes. Without evidence, he's accused Democrats of wanting schools closed because of politics, not health.

BILLINGS, MONT.

Care home refused free tests. Now, nearly everyone has virus

It was meant to be a last line of defense to protect the most vulnerable as the coronavirus spread across the United States: Montana officials offered free testing in May for staff and residents at assisted living and long-term care facilities.

But not all of them followed through, according to state data, including a facility in Billings, Montana's largest city, that cares for people with dementia and other memory problems. The virus has infected almost every resident there and killed eight since July 6, accounting for almost a quarter of Montana's 34 confirmed deaths.

Thirty-six employees also have tested positive.

While Montana's rates of confirmed infections and deaths are much lower than other parts of the country, the outbreak at Canyon Creek Memory Care illustrates that even the most simple and commonsense preventive measures have sometimes gone unused during the pandemic, allowing the virus to sweep through elderly care facilities with devastating results.

"I don't see that there's good justification for just not testing.

You're operating in the dark," said Chris Laxton, executive director of the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine, which represents more than 50,000 long-term care professionals. Nursing homes became the first places with fatal outbreaks in the U.S.

Six of Montana's earliest deaths were tied to infections acquired at another nursing home, but the state initially avoided the widespread early outbreaks seen elsewhere in the nation.

BOSTON

Trump administration rescinds rule on foreign students

Facing eight federal lawsuits and opposition from hundreds of universities, the Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded a rule that would have required international students to transfer or leave the country if their schools held classes entirely online because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The decision was announced at the start of a hearing in a federal lawsuit in Boston brought by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. U.S.

District Judge Allison Burroughs said federal immigration authorities agreed to pull the July 6 directive and "return to the status quo."

A lawyer representing the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said only that the judge's characterization was correct. The announcement brings relief to thousands of foreign students who had been at risk of being deported from the country, along with hundreds of universities that were scrambling to reassess their plans for the fall in light of the policy.

- The Associated Press