Health News Roundup: Americans in holiday rush despite highest COVID-19 death toll in 6 months; Dutch researchers preparing for 'human challenge' COVID-19 vaccine trial and more

Dutch researchers preparing for 'human challenge' COVID-19 vaccine trial Researchers at the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands are preparing for a potential "human challenge" trial in which volunteers are deliberately infected with the new coronavirus to test the effectiveness of vaccine candidates, advocacy group 1Day Sooner said on Wednesday.

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Dutch researchers preparing for 'human challenge' COVID-19 vaccine trial

Researchers at the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands are preparing for a potential "human challenge" trial in which volunteers are deliberately infected with the new coronavirus to test the effectiveness of vaccine candidates, advocacy group 1Day Sooner said on Wednesday. The plan has already attracted 240 volunteers, the U.S.-based group said https://www.1daysooner.org/press-releases.

Americans in holiday rush despite highest COVID-19 death toll in 6 months

Record hospitalizations and a surging death toll failed to keep Americans from traveling a day before the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, raising fears that the unchecked spread under way is a prelude to further contagion at Christmastime. Daily U.S. deaths from COVID-19 surpassed 2,000 for the first time since May on Tuesday and hospitalizations reached a record 88,000 on Wednesday as the country recorded 2.3 million new infections in the past two weeks alone.

Explainer: How will Canada's COVID-19 vaccine program work?

Canada has ordered more COVID-19 vaccine doses per capita than any other country - at least 194 million and up to 414 million doses for its population of 38 million. With limited manufacturing capacity, six of the vaccines the country has ordered will have to be imported and the first are unlikely to arrive before early 2021, while a candidate from Quebec's Medicago is likely at least six months from approval.

As COVID-19 cases soar, U.S. families weigh risks of welcoming college kids home

Nina Jain was regularly checking the nation's COVID-19 data and holding out hope that her son Antonio, a sophomore who attends college in Iowa, could come home to Sacramento, California, for Thanksgiving this week. Jain, who works in a government office, had her hopes dashed when she saw U.S. COVID-19 cases rise by an average of more than 168,000 per day last week. Antonio canceled his flight on Friday, hours before it was scheduled to depart, heeding public health warnings that a nationwide dispersal of college students heading home for the holidays could fuel a deadly wave of infections.

No benefit seen from plasma treatment in severe COVID-19; virus may hurt male fertility

The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

Countries around the world agonized over new coronavirus curbs ahead of Christmas and other holidays as global infections approached 60 million on Wednesday and U.S. officials pleaded with Americans to stay home over Thanksgiving. The holiday weekend is expected to fuel a surge of infections in the United States, which leads the world with soaring COVID-19 infections and the daily toll on Tuesday climbing above 2,000, the highest 24-hour tally since early May.

WHO experts would like to go to Wuhan, China, to probe COVID-19 origin

Researchers led by the World Health Organization would like to go back to a wholesale food market in Wuhan in China to follow up initial cases of COVID-19 which emerged in the city and investigate how the virus probably first spread from bats. Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO expert in animal diseases, said that the team would like to re-interview early COVID-19 cases and find infected workers who may have "important information" on where they may have picked up the new coronavirus.

Special Report: To reopen or not to reopen - That is the fraught question for U.S. schools

After a two-week deluge of calls and messages from parents - and at least one death threat - the school board in Chandler, Arizona, called a special meeting this fall. The board would revisit its decision, prompted by the coronavirus, to temporarily close local campuses and offer all classes online.

Global coronavirus cases surpass 60 million infections – Reuters tally

The global tally of confirmed coronavirus cases hit 60 million on Wednesday, with the pace of new infections accelerating and the United States reporting record numbers of hospitalizations, according to a Reuters tally. Officials in the United States, the worst-affected country in the world, urged Americans to stay home for the imminent Thanksgiving holiday as soaring numbers of COVID-19 patients pushed medical professionals to the brink.

U.S. CDC reports 259,005 deaths from coronavirus

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday reported 12,498,734 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 165,282 from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 1,989 to 259,005. The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by a new coronavirus, as of 4 pm ET on Nov. 24 versus its previous report a day earlier.