U.S. coronavirus death tolls surpasses 90,000

Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous, Brian Sozzi, and Anjalee Khemlani break down the latest coronavirus news.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: We want to give you the latest now on the coronavirus by the numbers. There are almost 4.9 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide. That has resulted in over 323,000 deaths. Most of those numbers are here in the US, where we have 1.52 million confirmed cases. That has resulted in almost 92,000 deaths.

Anjalee Khemlani joining us now for more on this. Anjalee, we know that everyone is hoping for a cure. That vaccine cannot come fast enough, when we saw the market rally big time on Monday on the hopes that Moderna was having some good clinical trials of its possible COVID-19 vaccine. But now even some scientists are coming out and saying, wait a minute, don't get too excited too quickly here. What's the latest?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Right, Alexis. Well, what they're saying is actually not different from any other time. And we've always seen a cautionary approach to what is happening with any sort of major drug. But this is different because of the unprecedented global demand.

You've got the race going on, essentially, with China, which is far ahead of Moderna. I've heard some experts say we're at least three months behind China right now at maximum based on their timeline. So that's something to look out for as well.

Meanwhile, on the trial data itself, yes, there is speculation that maybe Moderna released it a little too early. But it is still a phase one trial. And that's important to remember. Whenever we're looking for really solid data, it really comes out when there are more people involved in the trial, so the thousands of people that can be involved in the phase three late stage trial. That's really when you should really start paying attention to what's going on.

So at face value, the Moderna news is still positive, because it allows us to understand that there is a response to the drug. And that's important to know what the steps are going forward. So right now, what we know is that lower doses did prove effective. We still have to test how many more people showed up with antibodies. That group was only 45.

And so they still have to figure out for the next phase whether or not to use that 25 microgram, 50 microgram, maybe 75, or to boost it to 100. And it's also important to remember that the lower the number is, it means more people-- more of the vaccine can be produced, so more people can get it. So a lot of this really looking at sort of the global competition, as well as the normal timeline, really, just in a very public space right now, more than any-- more than ever before, Alexis.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: I also want to ask you about, unrelated to the vaccine, CVS Health, the latest company to actually give back some of those relief funds to the government. I understand they're giving back $43 million. What's the story there?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Absolutely. The company on its own did, in fact, give back the funding. And we've seen a number of companies do this, ones that maybe didn't qualify. And while they do based on their Medicaid care population, they did choose to, based on the fact that they have received a lot of attention for doing quite well, actually, amid the outbreak. I know that a recent Fortune report actually noted that their revenues have been pretty good, seeing at least a $62 billion boost.

So just looking back at how the company is doing, they said that they want to be able to continue to help the government. And that was one of the key things that they highlighted on why.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right, Anjalee. You know, I got a question for you. Just because if I'm thinking it, I'm wondering if other people are thinking it too. When it comes to these clinical trials, especially on humans, who are these people who are participating?

Do you know? Are they folks who they know have antibodies, who already had the vaccine? And how are they finding these people?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: It's typically volunteers. So either a doctor can recommend based on the conditions, or if they know about the trial. Or individuals themselves can choose to participate if they want to be one of those individuals that get tested on.

A lot of the time, health workers, scientists themselves are one of the very first people that get tested on. If it's good enough for themselves, then it's good enough to sort of test out on other people. So that's usually where it comes from.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right, thanks. Just wondering about that. Thanks for clearing that up, Anjalee Khemlani.