In early May, U.S. President Donald Trump was asked during a Fox News virtual town hall when the country would no longer be dependent on foreign pharmaceutical manufacturers for 94% of antibiotics used in this country.   “I think we will have it done within two years,” Trump answered. “Everybody makes our drugs, except us.” U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs for the Camp David, Maryland presidential retreat from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, May 15, 2020.Trump may have been overly optimistic, but he was reflecting a mounting concern among …

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence held a meeting of the National Space Council on Tuesday, just over a week before the program is set to launch astronauts into space from American soil. The meeting was held virtually, with Pence in Washington, and NASA administrators and astronauts checking in remotely. The vice president noted that the project stayed on schedule, even amid the coronavirus pandemic. He said the May 27 launch will be an inspiration to the country. NASA astronauts are set to blast into orbit on a private company’s rocket, a first …

A scientific study published Tuesday shows COVID-19-related restrictions imposed by governments around the world since March drove a decline of daily global greenhouse emissions by as much as 17% by early April. But the authors of the study, published Tuesday in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change, say the drastic improvement is likely to be temporary as economies resume. The study says that in the years leading up to the coronavirus pandemic, emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) were rising by about 1% per year over the previous decade. But population confinement has led to drastic …

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) special envoy on COVID-19 said Tuesday that the coronavirus will ”be a constant threat” until a vaccine or reliable treatment is found. In an interview with British broadcaster Sky News, Dr. David Nabarro said this means the world will need to learn how to live with it. The coronavirus causes the COVID-19 disease. Nabarro said that while the world is focused on a vaccine, and there are promising signs, the WHO does believe one will be readily available “between one-and-a half and two-and-a-half years at the minimum.” He …

President Donald Trump’s declaration that he was taking a malaria drug of dubious effectiveness to help fend off the coronavirus will likely be welcomed in India. Trump’s previous endorsement of hydroxychloroquine catalyzed a tremendous shift in the South Asian country, spurring the world’s largest producer of the drug to make much more of it, prescribe it for front-line health workers treating the virus and deploy it as a diplomatic tool, despite mounting evidence against using the drug for COVID-19. Trump said Monday that he was taking hydroxychloroquine as a measure …