U.S. reports over 71,000 new coronavirus cases in one day, highest since July

AstraZeneca Inc. announced Friday that regulators are letting it resume testing of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate in the U.S.

Testing of the vaccine was halted worldwide early last month because of a British study volunteer's illness. Studies have already resumed in other countries, and the British drugmaker said the Food and Drug Administration gave the company the go-ahead Friday to resume U.S. testing.

The AstraZenca vaccine, developed with Oxford University, is one of several coronavirus vaccine candidates in final-stage testing around the world.

The drugmaker said it was allowed to resume testing after the FDA "reviewed all safety data from trials globally and concluded it was safe to resume the trial."

The company said that testing has already resumed in the United Kingdom, Brazil, South Africa and Japan.

Such temporary halts of drug and vaccine testing are relatively common because in research involving thousands of participants, some are likely to fall ill. Putting a study on hold allows researchers to investigate whether an illness is a side effect or a coincidence.

Nearly 130,000 lives in the U.S. could be saved from the coronavirus this fall and winter if nearly all Americans wear face masks, according to the team of researchers behind a model that's been used by the White House. The team, which works on the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation model, made the estimate in an article published Friday in the journal Nature Medicine.

The U.S. death toll could pass 511,000 by the end of February 2021, the researchers said. But if 95% of the population wore a mask when they were in public, an estimated 129,574 lives could be saved.

If a smaller percentage of the population — 85% — wore masks, the researchers said an estimated 95,814 lives could be saved.

The top health official in one of Florida's most populous counties is discouraging parents from hosting birthday parties for their children, no matter the size, in an effort to prevent outbreaks of the coronavirus.

Dr. Raul Pino, health officer for the state Department of Health in Orange County, said half of the 30 attendees at a recent Sweet 16 party in the Orlando area came down with the virus. Last month, an Orange County high school closed for two weeks after students who had attended a birthday party tested positive for the virus.

"Those parties will not only affect those people participating in that activity, but also everyone else they come into contact with when they leave," Pino said Thursday at a news conference. "I'm absolutely sure no one wants this to happen. We will continue to see consequences if we don't act super-responsibly."

After almost 160 years of holiday traditions, Macy's Santa Claus won't be coming to town this year. Due to coronavirus risks, the flagship department store will move its annual Santa visits online in a new virtual experience.

On a typical month in December, Macy's flagship store in New York City is filled with anxious parents and excited children, all waiting to speak with Santa Claus himself. Macy's Santaland, which includes a chance to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what you want for Christmas, is a time-honored tradition, which Macy's reports brings a quarter of a million people to its store every year.

But as the coronavirus pandemic continues to plague the United States, the close contact of visiting Santa and his elves provides too much of a health risk to host. While Santa will not appear at Macy's New York, Chicago, or San Francisco Santalands, the department store does have a plan to ensure the "magic of Christmas" isn't canceled this year. The in-store experience will be replicated in a digital event, where children can interact with Santa and his elves through video.

President Trump and several of his top aides didn't wear face masks while speaking with reporters in the Oval Office on Friday. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, national security adviser Robert O'Brien, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Jared Kushner, a senior adviser to Mr. Trump and his son-in-law, weren't wearing masks while the president spoke with reporters about a variety of topics.

O'Brien, Pompeo and Kushner stood practically shoulder-to-shoulder in the meeting, which was called to announce efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Sudan. Some people in the room, including White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, did wear a mask.

The meeting came three weeks after Mr. Trump was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to be treated for the coronavirus. While it's unknown how the president became infected, his diagnosis for the disease came days after he introduced federal appeals court Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his third nominee to the Supreme Court in a largely maskless Rose Garden event.

The Czech Republic's prime minister called on his health minister to resign or be fired after he broke strict government restrictions to slow a record surge of coronavirus infections and visited a Prague restaurant.

Prime Minister Andrej Babis said Friday he will meet with the country's president later in the day to discuss a possible replacement of the minister, Roman Prymula.

"If we want the people to abide by the rules ... it is us who have to set an example," Babis said. "We can't preach water and drink wine."

The Blesk tabloid daily said Prymula met with Jaroslav Faltynek, deputy head of the senior government ANO, or YES, movement led by Babis in a Prague restaurant on Wednesday night. Photographs published in the paper showed that Prymula also didn't wear a mandatory face mask.

Restaurants are closed in the Czech Republic because of the pandemic, and it wasn't immediately clear if the establishment was open or if the owner only allowed Prymula and Faltynek in to dine there.

Moscow — Russia confirmed a record 17,340 new coronavirus cases on Friday, but despite the rise, and mounting deaths, authorities pledged not to reimpose strict lockdown measures across the country and declared the epidemic "under control."

The increase in daily cases — Friday was the first time Russia has recorded more than 17,000 in a single day — brought the total number of confirmed COVID-19 diagnoses in the country thus far to 1,480,646. Russia remains the fourth worst-hit country in the world by the number of confirmed infections.

Despite the number of new cases and deaths recorded daily being higher than in the spring, Russia's government has thus far declined to follow some European countries that have re-imposed blanket lockdowns.

"The situation is under control. It is not easy, it is tense, but it is under control," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday.

A horrifying video surfaced on Russian social media feeds this week showing dozens of dead bodies in black plastic bags lined up in a basement hallway at a Siberian hospital. The video, dated October 17, shows the bags on the floor and on gurneys. The unnamed man who shot the video, which was first uploaded to the Telegram messaging app, says all the bodies belong to COVID-19 patients.

Moments after hearing an Idaho hospital was overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients and looking at sending people as far away as Seattle for care, members of a regional health department board voted Thursday to repeal a local mask mandate.

Kootenai Health in Coeur d'Alene reached 99% capacity a day earlier, even after doubling up patients in rooms and buying more hospital beds. Idaho is one of several states where a surge of COVID-19 infections is overwhelming hospitals, likely in part because cooler weather is sending people indoors, U.S. health officials said.

But the board voted 4-3 to end the mask mandate. Board members overseeing the operations of Idaho's public health districts are appointed by county commissioners and not required to have any medical experience.

Board member Walt Kirby said he was giving up on the idea of controlling the spread of coronavirus.

"I personally do not care whether anybody wears a mask or not. If they want to be dumb enough to walk around and expose themselves and others, that's fine with me," Kirby said. "Nobody's wearing the damned mask anyway... I'm sitting back and watching them catch it and die. Hopefully I'll live through it."

Some Chicago businesses will have to close by 10 p.m. and residents are asked to limit gatherings to six people as the number of newly confirmed coronavirus cases among residents continues to rise, the city's mayor announced Thursday.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot also announced that bars without food licenses must stop serving customers indoors and liquor sales citywide must end at 9 p.m. The curfew doesn't apply to grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations and other essential businesses.

All of the changes take effect Friday.

Lightfoot warned earlier this week that rising numbers of new confirmed cases could lead to reinstated restrictions on the city's economy. As of Thursday, Lightfoot said the city was reporting an average of 645 new cases during the past seven days.

The coronavirus positivity rate in Kansas has topped 20%, among the highest in the country. The 14-day rolling average of the positivity rate in Kansas rose from 15.04% on October 7 to 20.64% on Wednesday, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project.

The seven-day average for new cases was a record 757 on Wednesday, with many cases in rural parts of the state.

More than 90 of the state's 105 counties have opted out of Democratic Governor Laura Kelly's mask order. She plans to speak with House and Senate leadership to work toward a bipartisan mask requirement with more teeth.

The state's top public health official, Dr. Lee Norman, this month blamed the state's worsening numbers on residents' refusal to consistently follow public health guidelines for mask-wearing, social distancing and avoiding large public gatherings.

Some lawmakers have resisted imposing statewide restrictions, wanting the decisions left to local officials. Kelly says there will be legislative challenges, but the research is clear: Masks work.

New Jersey on Thursday reported more than 1,000 new COVID-19 cases for the fifth day in a row as the state battles a new rise of infections. Governor Phil Murphy said the statewide rate of transmission is now 1.17, which means each new case is leading to more than one other infection.

"We're advising all New Jerseyans to avoid any unnecessary interstate travel given the recent increases in numbers both here and in neighboring states," Murphy tweeted. "Crossing state lines for work, groceries, or worship is one thing – but otherwise, stay in New Jersey."

Hospitalizations are increasing in the state and more schools are delaying reopenings.

"This is not something we didn't expect. We expected a second wave to happen in the fall. But the question is how bad it gets. That means peak, and how quickly we get to that peak," said Dr. Shereef Elnahal, president and CEO of University Hospital, Newark, CBS New York reported.

Murphy said Thursday officials are seeing trouble with gatherings in private homes and urged people to follow CDC guidelines "and not gather in a private home with anyone outside your immediate family."