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Coronavirus Latest: Friday, August 14

On Friday, numerous pharmaceutical companies - Novavax, Johnson and Johnson, and AstraZeneca - came forward with announcements about vaccine deals with several countries. Yahoo Finance’s Anjalee Khemlani breaks down the latest news about the coronavirus on The Final Round.

Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: Let's move on to some headlines on the coronavirus front today because we did get developing news on the race to develop that coronavirus vaccine. The UK government announcing today it has secured key deals with Johnson & Johnson and Novavax. Well, we heard from the European Commission talking about their own deal with AstraZeneca. Anjalee Khemlani is tracking all the deal making for us today. Walk us through the specifics.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Thanks, Akiko. Yeah. So while a lot of the financial disclosures haven't been made available, we do know that the European Union did strike a deal with AstraZeneca for 400 million doses and is in talks with Johnson & Johnson for 200 million doses. Meanwhile, the UK did, in fact, make a deal with Johnson & Johnson for 30 million and Novavax for 60 million doses, as well as collaborations on their phase-3 trials, which are going to be global trials. And as we know, those are-- that's the last stage and really important for determining whether or not these vaccines are, in fact, going to be effective.

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Meanwhile, we also have the US Health Department out with an announcement that McKesson is going to be in charge of distributing the vaccines for Operation Warp Speed. And McKesson is one of those companies that did, in fact-- was charged with distribution of the H1N1 vaccine back in the 2009 flu pandemic. All of this to say that, you know, we're still sort of in a wait-and-see period when it comes to which vaccines are effective.

Meanwhile, cases continue to rise across the country and continues to be a concern. But the US remains a major hotspot for this outbreak. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top epidemiologist, yesterday saying, you know, very disappointed, quote unquote, "not pleased with where we are today" with the outbreak. Akiko.

AKIKO FUJITA: And Anjalee, to that point, we did reach a grim milestone here in California today. The state becoming the first in the country to surpass that 600,000 mark in terms of cases. Now, Anthony Fauci's saying he is certainly not pleased with where things are. But in some of the hot spots states, we have seen the transmission, that the rate of that start to slow. And yet we're seeing the positivity rates go up.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Right. And there's also confusion about, you know, the testing, whether or not the testing has slowed down and whether or not that is, in fact, a result of all this. But definitely some questions in some positivity rates. And Dr. Fauci talking about how that is, in fact-- [COUGHING] sorry-- is, in fact, a concerning trend and could lead to more cases soon.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, a lot to get through, too, Anjalee, go get some water there. Thanks so much for bringing us those headlines.