money Coronavirus latest: Thursday, May 21
AstraZeneca has agreed to a $1 billion investment in Oxford University’s coronavirus vaccine and its production. This comes as a poll revealed that a quarter of Americans are not likely to even want to get a vaccination due to concerns about the negative effects it could have. Yahoo Finance’s Anjalee Khemlani joins The Final Round to break down the latest news about the coronavirus.
Video Transcript
MYLES UDLAND: Let's move on now to talk about the pandemic, latest state of where things stand here and around the world and also on the treatment front. Anjalee Khemlani joins us now for the latest. Anjalee.
ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Thanks, Myles. Yep. So a grim new milestone today-- surpassing 5 million cases globally. We know that we've seen, really, sort of that trend of waves continuing. First it was Asia, then Europe, then North America. And now we're seeing it spill over into South America. So that is something to keep an eye on.
Similarly, at the state level here in the US, we are seeing, you know, some states that are seeing slight increases in hospitalization, including some of those states that we were concerned about with opening up too early, like Georgia. So definitely something to keep an eye on.
Meanwhile, earlier today, we heard about AstraZeneca, one of the largest pharma companies, agreeing to distribute a vaccine from Oxford University if and when they do make it to market. They've already agreed on that for the UK. But this agreement for the US comes along with $1 billion from the Health and Human Services Department-- one of their arms, BARDA-- that's been given money by Congress to distribute.
Really significant move there, because $1 billion is a lot larger than what other companies have received, including some US-based companies. So not sure if that really speaks volumes of what the confidence level is in Oxford's vaccine. We know that Oxford is one of those ones that's further along-- Moderna, Oxford, as well as the Chinese company CanSino, is the other one.
So waiting to hear more about the details of that. We do know that AstraZeneca's strategy is to only go forward producing at-risk these vaccines, which is a strategy that other companies have employed, because of that government funding. So without that, this wouldn't be possible. And so that really expands the potential for the US to receive vaccines.
Meanwhile, speaking of vaccines, there is a new poll out that some people are probably not going to want them. You know, the rush for increased timelines and just looking at how that's going to affect safety or potential safety issues. There are concerns there about that, about whether-- and that, I think, speaks to also the confidence that they have in the administration and the FDA.
But it could just be, you know, people's sentiment. And the FDA does have its credibility to worry about and on the line. So we will definitely be seeing just how quickly we do see a vaccine get to market. Myles.
MYLES UDLAND: All right. Anjalee Khemlani with the latest on the coronavirus outbreak.
