China Researchers Discover New Swine Flu With Pandemic Potential; India Approves Vaccine For Human Trials

CNN: New Swine Flu With 'Pandemic Potential' Discovered In China 
Chinese researchers have discovered a new type of swine flu that can infect humans and has the potential to cause a future pandemic, according to a study released on Monday, though scientists have cautioned that the virus does not pose an immediate global health threat. The disease, which researchers called the G4 virus, is genetically descended from the H1N1 swine flu that caused a pandemic in 2009. G4 now shows "all the essential hallmarks of a candidate pandemic virus," said the study, published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). (Yeung, 6/30)

Reuters: China Study Warns Of Possible New 'Pandemic Virus' From Pigs 
A new flu virus found in Chinese pigs has become more infectious to humans and needs to be watched closely in case it becomes a potential “pandemic virus”, a study said, although experts said there is no imminent threat. A team of Chinese researchers looked at influenza viruses found in pigs from 2011 to 2018 and found a “G4” strain of H1N1 that has “all the essential hallmarks of a candidate pandemic virus”, according to the paper, published by the U.S. journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). (6/29)

Reuters: India's First COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate Approved For Human Trials 
Bharat Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine has been approved for human trials, making it India’s first domestic candidate to get the green light from the government’s drug regulator as cases surge in a country with more than 1.3 billion people. The Drug Controller General of India has approved the company’s application to conduct a Phase I and II clinical trial of Covaxin, which was developed along with the Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Institute of Virology, the company said in a statement on Monday. (6/29)

Reuters: United States Not On EU's 'Safe' Travel List, Diplomats Say 
The 27-member bloc is expected to give outline approval to leisure or business travel from Wednesday to 14 countries beyond its borders when they vote on the list by midday Brussels time (1000 GMT), the diplomats said. The countries are Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay, they said. (Blenkinsop, 6/30)

AP: EU To List Which Citizens Can Enter; US Likely To Miss Out
The European Union is set to make public Tuesday a list of countries whose citizens will be allowed to enter 31 European countries, but most Americans are likely to be refused entry for at least another two weeks due to soaring coronavirus infections in the U.S. EU envoys to Brussels have launched a written procedure which would see the list endorsed Tuesday morning as long as no objections are raised by member countries. The list is expected to contain up to 15 countries that have virus infection rates comparable to those in the EU. (6/30)

Reuters: UK COVID-19 Death Toll Nears 55,000 Including Suspected Cases 
The United Kingdom’s suspected COVID-19 death toll has hit 54,852, according to a Reuters tally of official data sources that underline the country’s status as one of the worst hit in the world. The Reuters tally comprises fatalities where COVID-19 was mentioned on death certificates in England, Wales and Northern Ireland up to June 19, and up to June 21 in Scotland. It also includes more recent hospital deaths. (6/30)

The Wall Street Journal: Research Lays Bare Covid-19’s Outsize Impact On Ethnic Minorities 
British researchers are reporting repeatedly that some ethnic groups are more vulnerable to Covid-19 than the country’s white majority, a finding mirrored in the U.S. that doctors say is laying bare longstanding inequalities in health between communities. The most persuasive reason for the disparity, doctors and researchers say, is that black and other ethnic minority groups in the U.K. are on average poorer than whites and more likely to live in places or work in occupations in which the risk of exposure to the new coronavirus is greater. (Douglas, 6/29)

Reuters: Into The Fog: How Britain Lost Track Of The Coronavirus
On Friday, Feb. 21, Duncan Selbie, chief executive of Public Health England, was in a cheerful mood. It was near the end of the school half-term holiday. He wrote on an official blog that there had been no new positive cases of the new coronavirus that week in the United Kingdom. It was a “testament,” he said, “to the robust infection control measures” and the “diagnostic and testing work” at laboratories nationwide. (Grey, Macaskill, McNeill, Stecklow and Wilkes, 6/29)

Reuters: Philippine Doctors Shield Families With 'Quarantent', Safe Spaces
After taking a job in a hospital’s COVID-19 emergency room, Philippine doctor Jan Claire Dorado planned to move out of the family home to protect relatives from the risk of infection. But Dorado’s parents insisted the 30-year-old keep living at home, so her father constructed a makeshift isolation area in a storage room there. (Lopez, 6/30)