August 4 coronavirus news

President Trump told reporters that he is “looking at” possibly signing an executive action if no deal is made by the end of this week on unemployment benefits but said that “progress” is being made on the Hill.

“We are looking at it. We’re also looking at various other things I’m allowed to do under the system, such as the payroll tax suspension. And so we’re allowed to do things,” Trump said in the briefing room Tuesday. 

Trump also sounded more encouraged by discussions today on the Hill saying, “We’re talking with the Democrats. They seem to be much more interested in solving the problems in some of the Democrat-run states and cities that have suffered greatly through bad management.”

“As far as the various things that I may or may not sign — I may not have to sign. Progress has been made as you know, very well on the Hill. We’ll see what happens, including the payroll tax suspension,” Trump added.

It remains unclear what, if any, legal authority the executive branch has to address those issues in a substantive manner. Congressional aides and lawmakers, who remain in the dark on the details, are skeptical the efforts have any validity. 

Attorneys general from 34 states wrote a letter Tuesday to federal officials urging them to intervene to increase the supply and affordability of remdesivir, the only drug authorized by the government to treat Covid-19.  

The attorneys general warned Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human Services; Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health; and Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration that the supply of the drug is “dangerously limited” and that the recently announced prices of the drug “will impede access to treatment.”  

Gilead Sciences owns the patent on remdesivir, and so is currently the only company allowed to sell it. In their letter, the attorneys general asked that the federal government enact the Bayh-Dole Act, which would effectively allow other pharmaceutical companies to make it as well.  

“We respectfully urge the federal government to exercise its rights under the Bayh-Dole Act, which will allow the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the FDA to ensure that Americans can afford and access a sufficient supply of remdesivir during this pandemic,” they wrote. 

The attorneys general pointed out in their letter that remdesivir was created with taxpayer funding.

The Bayh-Dole Act would allow the federal government, using the “march-in” provision, to pass the license of a patented drug that was developed with federal funding to a third party who would compete with Gilead in an effort to increase supply and lower prices. Under the law, the Bayh-Doyle Act can be used if a patent holder fails to “alleviate health or safety needs” of consumers. 

Three US senators released bipartisan legislation Tuesday aimed at increasing safety and transparency around the approval of a coronavirus vaccine for emergency use in the US.

Sens. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire, Mike Braun, a Republican from Indiana) and Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, said they introduced the Safe Authorization for Vaccines during Emergencies (SAVE) Act in part to improve public confidence in a potential vaccine amid some concerns that safety is being sacrificed in the race for a Covid-19 vaccine.

The bill would codify the role of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration in reviewing a potential vaccine, ensuring that recommendations on vaccine safety and efficacy be made public. The bill aims to hold the Health and Human Services Department accountable for ensuring vaccine advisory committee meetings are transparent.

The senators plan to push for the bill to be included in an upcoming Covid-19 relief package. 

The FDA has issued guidance requiring a vaccine to be at least 50% effective in preventing infection or serious disease before it receives emergency use authorization (EUA). An EUA would greenlight a coronavirus vaccine for use on an expedited basis.

Brazil added 51,603 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, its health ministry announced on Tuesday. 

With the new cases, the country has so far registered more than 2.8 million Covid-19 infections since the pandemic began. 

The ministry also registered 1,154 new fatalities related to the virus, raising the total death toll to 95,819. 

Some background: Latin America and the Caribbean have reached over 5 million cases of Covid-19, according to a CNN tally based on Johns Hopkins University data. 

Brazil continues to be second hardest-hit country worldwide following the US and the first in the Latin American region, according to Johns Hopkins.  

Even as Florida continues to report thousands of new coronavirus cases each day, Gov. Ron DeSantis today floated the idea of allowing visitors at nursing homes. 

“I think a lot of the family members understand that these are difficult circumstances," he said today at a roundtable in Jacksonville, Florida. "Clearly they would not want policies to be done that would lead to massive amounts of people in these facilities getting infected. But I think that if you have a way forward, I think that would put a lot of people at ease, knowing that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”

DeSantis said he believes family members who have Covid-19 antibodies should be able to visit relatives.

The governor said he will form an exploratory committee, which will include Florida Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Mary Mayhew, to discuss policies that could be implemented to ensure safe visitation at Florida’s 4,000 nursing home facilities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and various public health experts all recommend strongly against this approach. 

They say it is not known if having antibodies protects you from becoming infected again or from spreading the virus to others.

 The CDC also says:

CNN’s Maggie Fox contributed to this report.

There have been at least 4,758,028 cases of coronavirus in the US and at least 156,426 people have died from the virus, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.

On Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET, Johns Hopkins recorded 44,488 new cases and 1,024 reported deaths. 

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.  

Leaving a roughly two-hour meeting with senior administration officials, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi both said there had been progress in the talks but far more needed to be done to get a deal.

“We made some concessions,” Schumer said, adding, “they made some concessions, which we appreciated.”

They didn’t take questions or explain what those concessions were.

The disagreement in large part is around the scope of the stimulus bill. “The fundamental disagreement is the scope and depth of the problem,” Schumer said. “They are still wrapped around this idea that the government shouldn’t do much.” 

The four negotiators will also meet tomorrow on the stimulus talks.

Disney's media empire was ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic last quarter, with the company reporting a net loss of nearly $5 billion on Tuesday.

The company's parks were hit particularly hard by Covid-19. Its parks and resort unit lost $3.5 billion in the quarter. The unit's revenue was down a whopping 85% from the year ago quarter.

Overall sales for the company fell 42% to $11.8 billion.

One bright spot was Disney+, Disney's new streaming service, which had nearly 60 million subscribers at the end of June, according to the company.

A White House official said aides are eyeing various proposals for President Trump to take executive action in order to provide relief to US workers, should both sides in Congress fail to reach an agreement on a new coronavirus aid package. 

It remains unclear what, if any, legal authority the executive branch has to address those issues in a substantive manner. Congressional aides and lawmakers, who remain in the dark on the details, are skeptical the efforts have any validity. 

Where things stand: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday that she still wants a sweeping stimulus deal this week — but she made it clear she is not budging on the price tag put forward by House Democrats, reflecting how far apart the two sides are despite days of talks.

Asked if she has an idea on the price tag she's willing to settle for, Pelosi told CNN bluntly: "Yeah, $3.4 trillion."

That price tag has been rejected by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who last week put forward the Senate GOP plan that would cost roughly $1 trillion and has attacked House Democrats' $3 trillion-plus bill that passed their chamber more than two months ago. And even some centrist House and Senate Democrats are squeamish about backing such an eye-popping price tag proposed by the speaker.

Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows have already met six times behind closed doors  — and are not near an agreement on range of issues, including expiring jobless benefits and extending the expired federal eviction moratorium, according to both sides.