Russia Defends Coronavirus Vaccine Development, New Zealand Orders Auckland To Lock Down, New Jersey Schools Go Remote

A day after Russia announced it had approved a COVID-19 vaccine, it was defending the speed at which it was developed, saying it was in the works for the last six years. New Zealand reported four new positive cases of coronavirus after 102 days of no confirmed cases and decided to lock Auckland back down.

Elsewhere, New Jersey Gov. Phill Murphy did an about-face and said schools can teach remotely starting in the fall if they want to.

The response from Russia comes after critics wondered how safe and effective a COVID-19 vaccine could be when developed in less than two months. While no data has been released, Russia said it plans to deliver the vaccine to the public by the end of 2020, CNBC reported.

“Western colleagues, who can sense the competitive advantage of the Russian drug, are trying to express some opinions that are completely unjustified in our view,” Health Minister Mikhail Murashko told a briefing Wednesday. “This vaccine is a platform that is already well-known and studied.”

The Russian Direct Investment Fund said it has application requests from 20 countries for more than 1 billion doses of the vaccine, which is expected to begin inoculations later this month before phase 3 clinical trials are completed.

Russia said it has been developing the vaccine for the last six years, drawing from the work it has done to develop a vaccine for Ebola and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, but the World Health Organization said there is not an approved vaccine to treat MERS currently available and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration only approved an Ebola vaccine in December.

“We were just fortunate that the coronavirus was very close to MERS, so we pretty much had a ready-to-go vaccine on MERS, studied for two years on MERS [and] slightly modified to be the coronavirus vaccine, and that is the real story, no politics. ... Russia has always been at the forefront of vaccine research,” Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the direct investment fund, told CNBC.

In New Zealand, Auckland was locked down after the country saw four new positive cases of the coronavirus after a record 102 days without a single confirmed case. New Zealand has had more than 1,500 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 22 COVID-19 deaths, data from Johns Hopkins University showed.

Four members of a family in Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, tested positive for the coronavirus on Tuesday, prompting officials to lock down the city in a Level 3 restriction, meaning all businesses, schools, public facilities, and restaurants and bars were closed. Residents are also encouraged to stay home and wear a face mask in public.

It is suspected a family member, an employee of the U.S. cold storage transportation firm Americold Realty Trust, contracted the virus from freight and passed it on to three other family members.

“As we have seen in other countries where a resurgence occurs, it’s incredibly important to act early,” Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield told reporters. “We have done this before and we can do it again.”

An investigation into the source of the coronavirus is ongoing with surface testing being conducted to avoid further spread of the virus in New Zealand.

Also, New Jersey, Gov. Phill Murphy reversed his stance on school reopenings, allowing nearly 600 school districts in the state to make the decision whether to hold in-person classes or teach remotely.

The announcement from Murphy is a departure from his previous insistence that New Jersey schools should reopen with in-person classroom teaching in the fall. Murphy said during a news briefing schools that cannot meet health and safety standards set by the New Jersey Department of Education can choose to hold remote classes.

In other coronavirus news:

• More than 800 students and 40 staff members were quarantined after attending a week of school in the Cherokee County School District in Georgia. The mass quarantine comes after photos were posted to social media, showing students on the first day of classes with no face masks and not social distancing . Superintendent Brian Hightower said in a letter to parents: “We know we're under a microscope, as national media follows the reopening of schools across the country. But know that our decisions are not based on what people in New York or Kansas think, nor are we concerned about 'optics' or 'image' – we're focused on what's doing best for our community.”
• U.S. coal industry is being destroyed as jobs are lost, and production is cut. S&P Global Market Intelligence reported average quarterly coal mine employment dropped by 13.3% for Q2 compared to the prior quarter while decreasing 23.1% from a year earlier. Coal production fell by 24.7% to 112.3 million tons in the second quarter compared to Q1.
• A group of partiers took over a New York City bus, ignoring state social distancing and face mask orders. The pop-up party was captured on video, revealing more than a dozen individuals dancing, smoking hookahs and twerking aboard the bus. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus driver tried to stop the partygoers from boarding the bus, which was blocked off by double-parked cars. Authorities are looking to track down the individuals caught on video. The bus driver was not hurt.
• Almost a third of Americans are behind on their housing bills as they enter August, a report by online renter platform ApartmentList.com indicated. The report said 32% of Americans didn’t make a full, on-time housing payment for the first week of August – marking the fourth month in a row of nonpayment by renters and homeowners. As much as 20% of these individuals owed more than $1,000 the first week of August, the report said.
• Off-price retailer Stein Mart has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection under the weight of the coronavirus. The retailer said it plans to close some, if not all, of its brick-and-mortar stores as part of the restructuring process. It is also exploring its financial options, which could include a sale of its e-commerce business and intellectual property portfolio.
• There are more than 20.4 million positive cases of the coronavirus globally, with COVID-19 deaths topping 744,000, data from Johns Hopkins University show. The U.S. leads in confirmed coronavirus cases with more than 5.1 million, followed by Brazil, with more than 3.1 million cases and India, with more than 2.3 million cases of the virus. The U.S. has more than 165,00 COVID-19 deaths. Brazil, Mexico and the U.K. follow the U.S. in the total number of COVID-19 deaths.