What you need to know about the coronavirus today

Trump eyes return to rallies
President Donald Trump, who announced he had been infected with the coronavirus on Oct. 2 and spent three nights in a military hospital receiving treatment, said he was feeling “really good” and, with a doctor’s blessing, aimed to campaign in Florida on Saturday and in Pennsylvania on Sunday.
The White House has repeatedly refused to say when the president last tested negative for the virus - information essential to tracing the timeline of when and where he was likely infected.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends patients avoid contact with others for 10 days after the onset of symptoms. That means Trump should assume he is contagious through Saturday, Oct. 10, if he was first symptomatic on Oct. 1.
On Thursday, the president said he is no longer contagious, which some experts say is unlikely.

China joins COVAX
China said it has joined the COVAX global COVID-19 vaccine initiative co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO), becoming the biggest economy to date to pledge support to help buy and distribute the shots fairly.
The move by China, where the virus was first reported, comes as it holds separate talks with the WHO to have its locally produced COVID-19 vaccines assessed for international use.
China has at least four experimental vaccines in the final stage of clinical trials - two are developed by state-backed China National Biotec Group (CNBG), and the remaining two are from Sinovac Biotech and CanSino Biologics, respectively.
China joins some 168 countries that have already announced their participation in COVAX including 76 wealthy, self-financing ones. But neither the United States nor Russia have joined the program. The COVAX initiative aims to deliver at least 2 billion doses of vaccines by the end of 2021.
Takeda starts blood plasma trials
Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical said an alliance of drugmakers it spearheads has enrolled its first patient in a global clinical trial of a blood plasma treatment for COVID-19 after months of regulatory delays.
Patients will be treated with Gilead Science Inc’s Remdesivir alongside the plasma treatment, a hyperimmune globulin therapy derived from blood plasma, which offers a standardized dose of antibodies and doesn’t need to be limited to patients with matching blood types.
The WHO has urged caution about plasma treatments for COVID-19 saying evidence they work is “low quality”, even as the United States issued emergency authorization for such therapies.
Eli Lilly antibody treatment supply planned for low and middle-income countries
Drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co said on Thursday it had entered into an agreement with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for potential supply of its experimental antibody treatments for COVID-19 to low and middle-income countries.
As part of the deal, Lilly said it will make antibody therapies available to lower-income countries prior to April 2021, but did not elaborate on the number of doses.
Lilly in September partnered with Amgen to increase supply of its antibody therapies, a day after data showed Lilly’s single antibody therapy, LY-CoV555, helped cut hospitalization and emergency room visits for COVID-19 patients.
Track the global spread with Reuters live interactive graphic updated regularly throughout each day.

Breakingviews - Corona Capital: Soap, Zalando, Aussie oil
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Top Stories

President Donald Trump promised a new dawn for the struggling U.S. steel industry in 2016, and the lure of new jobs in Midwestern states including Michigan helped him eke out a surprise election win. Four years later, Great Lakes Works - once among the state’s largest steel plants - has shut down steelmaking operations and put 1,250 workers out of a job. A year before the June layoffs, plant owner United States Steel Corp called off a plan to invest $600 million in upgrades amid deteriorating market conditions.

The United Nations food agency, the World Food Programme, won the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to combat hunger and improve conditions for peace in areas affected by conflict. The Rome-based organization says it helps some 97 million people in about 88 countries each year, and that one in nine people worldwide still do not have enough to eat.

Thirteen men, seven of them associated with an anti-government militia group called the Wolverine Watchmen, have been arrested on charges of conspiring to kidnap the Michigan governor, attack the state legislature and threaten law enforcement, prosecutors said. The suspects had plotted to abduct Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who has clashed publicly with Republican President Donald Trump over state coronavirus restrictions, ahead of next month’s presidential election, according to state and federal criminal complaints.

At one point during her four years in the hands of jihadist militants in northern Mali, French aid worker Sophie Petronin said she felt like giving up hope. She wandered into the desert, sat on the ground in the baking sun and wept. The 75-year old, who ran a charity for malnourished and orphaned children when she was kidnapped near the desert city of Gao in late 2016, was one of four hostages released and flown to the capital Bamako.

Special Report

Broadhurst Cona survived all the indignities that South Africa’s apartheid system could throw at him, including a racist law that forbade him from playing rugby on the all-white national team, the Springboks. He wasn't going to let the coronavirus kill him. But his family wasn't spared the pandemic's grief.