World Coronavirus Dispatch: US FDA approves remdesivir as first Covid drug

Philippines to allow foreign investors in, French curfew now covers two-thirds of its population, mouthwash won't shield you from virus, and other pandemic-related news across the globe

US FDA said Thursday that it had formally approved remdesivir as the first drug to treat Covid-19, a move that indicated the government’s confidence in its safe and effective use for hospitalized patients. The antiviral drug had been approved for adults and paediatric patients 12 years of age and older and weighing at least 40 kilograms (about 88 pounds) who require hospitalization for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

The drug does not prevent deaths in Covid-19 patients. Read more here 

Let’s look at the global statistics:

Total Confirmed Cases: 41,734,275

Change Over Yesterday: 489,051

Total Deaths: 1,137,825

Total Recovered: 28,364,631

Nations hit with most cases: US (8,409,227), India (7,761,312), Brazil (5,323,630), Russia (1,471,000) and Argentina (1,053,650)

Source: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center

Philippines to allow foreign investors to enter:  Foreigners with investor's visa will be allowed to enter the Philippines from November 1, as authorities sought to boost the pandemic-battered economy.  The inter-agency task force leading the pandemic response, in its Thursday meeting, allowed the entry starting next month of foreign nationals with investor visa from the Bureau of Immigration, said Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque. Read more here 

France expands its curfew to cover two-thirds its population: France will extend its nightly curfew to cover a total of 46 million people, more than two-thirds of its population, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced on Thursday. Thirty-eight additional areas in France, as well as French Polynesia, will be affected by the change, which takes effect Saturday. The decision comes as France approaches a million recorded cases. Read more here 

In UK, furlough fraudsters stole as much as £3bn: More than £3bn might have been stolen in furlough money in UK by criminal gangs and fraudulent employers, according to estimates used by parliament’s spending watchdog in a report into the government’s flagship jobs protection scheme. The National Audit Office said there was evidence of “significant levels of furlough fraud” from both organised gangs “hijacking” claims and employers taking money collected on behalf of staff. Read more here 

UK sees record third quarter retail sales growth in post-lockdown rebound: British retail sales beat expectations in September to cap a record quarter of growth that took total sales volumes further above their pre-pandemic level, but rising Covid cases risk crimping demand going forward. Retail sales volumes expanded by 1.5 percent in September alone and are 4.7 percent higher than a year earlier, the largest annual rise since April 2019. Read more here 

Covid-19 circulating more quickly than in spring: French epidemiologist: The Covid-19 virus is spreading more quickly than during its initial outbreak in the spring, French government scientific advisor Arnaud Fontanet said on Friday, in one of the starkest warnings yet about the scale of the disease’s resurgence engulfing Europe. Like many other European countries facing a renewed spike in the number of cases since early September, France has ramped up restrictions to contain the disease. Read more here 

Barclays thrives on volatility as equities beat Wall Street: Barclays Plc’s traders had another strong quarter as pandemic-driven market volatility persisted due to Covid-19. The London-based bank’s securities division reported a 23 percent jump in foreign-exchange, rates and credit trading income in the third quarter, helping the company beat earnings estimates. Barclays also posted lower-than-expected impairments from the virus crisis. Read more here 

Specials 

Schoolchildren seem unlikely to fuel coronavirus surges, scientists say
 

Months into the school year, school reopenings across the United States remain a patchwork of plans: in-person, remote and hybrid; masked and not; socially distanced and not. But amid this jumble, one clear pattern is emerging.So far, schools do not seem to be stoking community transmission of the coronavirus, according to data emerging from random testing in the United States and Britain. Elementary schools especially seem to seed remarkably few infections.The evidence is far from conclusive, and much of the research has been tarnished by flaws in data collection and analysis. School reopenings are very much a work in progress. Still, many experts are encouraged by the results to date. Read more here 

Mouthwash will not save you from the coronavirus
 

A rash of provocative headlines this week offered a tantalizing idea: that mouthwash can “inactivate” coronaviruses and help curb their spread. The stories sprang from a new study that found that a coronavirus that causes common colds — not the one that causes Covid-19 — could be incapacitated in a laboratory when doused with mouthwash.  But outside experts warned against overinterpreting the study’s results, which might not have practical relevance to the new coronavirus. Not only did the study not investigate this deadly new virus, but it also did not test whether mouthwash affects how viruses spread from person to person. Read more here 

How to protect your money from scams in the Covid age
 

Here’s what you need to know to avoid falling prey to schemes that have cost people millions of dollars this year. Read here  

Info-Graphics
 

Here’s where Europe’s second wave is filling up hospitals
 

The number of Covid-19 patients in hospitals across the continent is still less than half of the peak in March and April, but it is rising steadily each week, according to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. People across much of Europe — including larger countries like France, Italy, Poland and Spain — are now more likely to be hospitalized with Covid-19 than those in the United States. Poland has turned its largest stadium into an emergency field hospital. The numbers of Covid-19 patients in Belgium and Britain have doubled in two weeks. And doctors and nurses in the Czech Republic are falling ill at an alarming rate. See here