Coronavirus updates: US exceeds 71K daily cases, first time since July; Chicago curfew begins Friday; Pfizer adds teens to vaccine trial - USA TODAY

Clinical trials for the AstraZeneca Oxford coronavirus vaccine resumed in the U.S.

Friday after the U.S. reported more than 71,000 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday for the first time since the summer surge in July.

In Europe, France surpassed one million confirmed cases of COVID-19 Friday,and a patient from the Netherlands was airlifted to a German intensive care unit –  the first such international airlift since the global pandemic began?

When will there be a COVID-19 vaccine.

In general, scientists and public health experts say a COVID-19 vaccine could be approved at the earliest by December, but that doesn't mean it will be widely available to most Americans.

"As part of the standard review process for trial safety events, a voluntary pause to vaccination across all global trials was triggered on 6 September to allow the examination of safety data by independent monitoring committees," the company said in a statement Friday. "The recommendations from these reviews have been supported by international regulators, who also confirmed that the trials were safe to resume.".

Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine trial was also paused in mid-October after an unexplained illness in a volunteer.

In South Dakota, the Oglala Sioux Tribe ordered a one-week lockdown of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in response to a surging number of COVID-19 cases in the state.

The tribe posted on its Twitter page that there were 391 active COVID-19 cases as of Thursday on the reservation, which has about 20,000 residents.

The lockdown comes as South Dakota surpassed 9,000 active coronavirus cases on Thursday and reported an all-time high of 973 new cases in one day.

Citing multiple COVID-19 clusters connected to indoor ice hockey, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health on Thursday ordered a two-week "pause" for ice rinks and ice skating facilities.

"This order is in response to multiple COVID-19 clusters occurring at rinks throughout the state following games, practices, and tournaments," the department said in a press release.

The department said there have been at least 30 clusters of COVID-19 associated with organized ice hockey activities involving residents from more than 60 municipalities in the state.

Each of these includes two or more confirmed or probable COVID-19 cases, totaling 108 confirmed cases, the department said.

A USA TODAY analysis shows COVID-19 cases grew at a faster rate than before after at least five of those rallies in the following counties: Blue Earth, Minnesota; Lackawanna, Pennsylvania; Marathon, Wisconsin; Dauphin, Pennsylvania; and Beltrami, Minnesota.

Public health officials additionally have linked 16 cases, including two hospitalizations, with the rally in Beltrami County, Minnesota, and one case with the rally in Marathon County, Wisconsin.

Outside of the counties identified by USA TODAY with a greater case increase after rallies, officials identified four cases linked to Trump rallies. .

health agency had recorded about 445,000 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours; nearly half of those were from Europe.

Researchers from the University of Washington's School of Medicine predicted that current state strategies surrounding social distancing, phased reopenings and mask mandates could lead to 511,373 deaths by Feb. 28, 2021, according to a study published Friday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Medicine.

For the first time since the end of July when cases were surging, the United States on Thursday recorded more than 71,000 new cases of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

The bleak toll comes as 12 states set new cases records in a week, according to a USA TODAY analysis: Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming, and also Guam.

Biden said his administration would encourage everyone to wear masks, invest in COVID-19 rapid testing, and create national standards to reopen schools and other institutions.

After months of testing its COVID-19 candidate vaccine in adults, Pfizer recently lowered the age of participation to 16, aiming to include at least 3,000 older teens.

As an antiviral drug, remdesivir works to stop replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, according to the drug's manufacturer, Gilead. Previously authorized by the FDA for emergency use to treat COVID-19, the drug is now the first and only approved COVID-19 treatment in the United States, Gilead said in a release.  

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Nov

"This practice of effectively keeping middle seats open bridged us from the early days of the pandemic, when we had little knowledge about the behavior of the virus, to now,'' the airline said in a statement Thursday