The World Health Organization stated on Tuesday that the agency was "not surprised" by a report that the coronavirus was present in France a month before the country reported its first case. According to Reuters, a hospital in France had retests old samples from pneumonia patients and discovered one confirmed case of COVID-19 that dates back to December 27, days before China first alerted the W.H.O. to the virus on December 31, 2019.
"It's also possible there are more early cases to be found," W.H.O. spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told a United Nations briefing in Geneva. "The findings help to better understand the potential virus circulation of COVID-19."
The W.H.O. stated that the French case requires more investigation, for the patient's travel history and occupation were not thought to have a direct link to China at the time of the initial outbreak in Wuhan. However, the agency stress that there is no current suggestions that the virus originated anywhere but Wuhan, China.
Total Global Cases: Over 3.7 Million
Total Deaths: Over 272,000
Total Recovered: Over 1.3 Million
More Aid, Please
In an interview with the New York Post, President Donald Trump stated that bailing out coronavirus weakened states would "not be fair to the Republicans because all the states the need help--there run by Democrats in every case. Florida is doing phenomenal, Texas is doing phenomenal, the Midwest is, you know, fantastic--very little debt...You look at Illinois, you look at New York, look at California, you know, those three, there's tremendous debt there, and many others."
As Congress is preparing for its fourth coronavirus relief package, hard-hit states like New York and New Jersey have asked the federal government for aid to help the states with the debt the coronavirus as brought. Governors from both sides of the political table have asked for funding, but Trump has begun to turn stimulus into a political game.
On Tuesday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo criticized Trump's comment, stating that many Democrat-led states have paid more in federal taxes than they have received annually.
"This coronavirus doesn't pick Democrats or Republicans. It doesn't kill Democrats or Republicans, it kills Americans," Cuomo stated at his Tuesday coronavirus press conference.
Nevertheless, Trump tweeted on Tuesday: "Well run States should not be bailing out poorly run States, using CoronaVirus as the excuse!..."
Human Trials
The coronavirus vaccine candidate designed by Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech (NASDAQ: BNTX), BNT162, has begun human testing in the United Stats on Tuesday. The vaccine will be testing in adults ages 18 to 55 in the first state before moving to older age groups. The companies hope to test up to 360 people.
BNT162 is an experimental vaccine that, unlike traditional vaccines that used weakened of dead versions of the virus its preventing, uses genetic material that directs a patients cells to make a protein found in the virus to train their immune system to fight the virus before exposure. This vaccine candidate uses messenger RNA that acts a a blueprint for COVID-19's protein makeup.
According to the New York Times, another vaccine candidate designed by two Harvard-affiliated hospitals in Massachusetts has seen promising results in lab mice using the same type of immune system response method through gene therapy. The researchers expect to be able to test in human trials within the year.