COVID-19 cases surge, officials issue warnings

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

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: We are now seeing a spike in new cases of coronavirus in a number of cities. We said that that was one of the reasons why investors were so jittery yesterday. We've seen this happening in states where they have reopened for business, including California, Florida, Arizona, and Texas, which just reported, by the way, its biggest one-day jump in cases since the pandemic began. In fact, officials in Houston are now considering re-establishing those stay-at-home orders.

As for the numbers, there are now 7.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally, which has resulted in almost 422,000 deaths. In the US, the number of cases has now topped 2 million, the death toll climbing past 114,000. Anjalee Khemlani is joining us now for more.

So Anjalee, there are some new reports about a polio vaccine perhaps helping and offering some protection against the virus. What can you tell us about that?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: All right, Alexis. So actually we're looking at the possibility of the polio vaccine. There are some scientists looking into it, asking for funding to test it out against coronavirus. We've already seen this. There's a clinical trial for tuberculosis. And so we're looking at existing vaccines and what the potential is.

And the idea behind that being that they've seen a lot of-- especially in some African countries, they've seen a lot of reduction in infant mortality and childhood mortality when they are vaccinated with these vaccines. And so they seem to believe that there is a wide range of immunity that these vaccines provide and are looking to test that against the coronavirus.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right. And there's also some news from Moderna, which we know has also been working on a vaccine, talking about whether or not they'd be able to scale up and get vaccines to those who need it most. What's the latest there?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: So we've seen this, actually, from a lot of companies. It's not just Moderna. And I don't believe that they've said it themselves. They've actually been pretty adamant about the idea that their partnership with Lonza is going to help them meet that 1 billion goal.

So we've heard a lot from these companies that are looking at ways to scale up, because there is more demand than there is supply at this point-- and potential to supply. I was talking to World Economic Forum's Arnaud Bernaert, who was on our show earlier this week. And he was telling me that the global vaccine manufacturing is really something in the ballpark of 3 billion. And so now we're looking to provide it to the whole world, which is more than double that.

And so we're going to need to know where to look and where there is untapped potential for manufacturing in the entire world. And so that's looking at some of the lower income countries and developing countries where there is manufacturing potential, but it hasn't been tapped into just yet.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Hey, Anjalee, just really quickly, these spikes that we're seeing in new cases in different pockets of the country, is that considered the second wave? Or no, because we haven't come down enough to consider this another wave?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Yeah, I think-- I know that that's an ongoing debate, but from the experts I'm talking to, this is still part of the first wave. Early on, if you remember a couple of months ago, we were hearing all the White House officials talking about how this will hit different parts of the country differently. And we'll see it come and go in waves, similarly to what we're seeing around the world. We know that it first hit Asia, then Europe, and then the US, and now South America. Similarly it's making its way around the country.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right. Anjalee Khemlani, thank you.