Coronavirus Watch: Turning the tide of the Southern outbreak

For once, some good news: The COVID-19 outbreak in the South is "beginning to turn the tide," the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

Mask wearing and social distancing measures are helping to bring the outbreak in the South under control in recent days, CDC Director Robert Redfield told the the editor of the journal JAMA late Thursday.

What's more, makers of a potential COVID-19 vaccine candidate have reported strong results for an early-stage trial.

It's Friday, and this is the Coronavirus Watch from the Paste BN Network. Here is the most significant news of the day, as of 12:30 p.m. ET:

• PPE problems: One in five nursing homes in the United States had severe shortages of personal protective equipment this summer, a new study in the journal Health Affairs says, which also found that many facilities in the hardest hit areas struggled to retain staff.
• Back to the movies? AMC Theaters, the country's largest chain, reopened 113 locations Thursday. Regal, the second-largest exhibitor, is following suit Friday.
• Postmaster General Louis DeJoy acknowledged delays in mail delivery Friday but defended changes made at the agency amid criticisms the moves would hinder the delivery of mail-in ballots in November's election. 
• Thousands of students returned to Arizona State University on Thursday for the first day of the fall semester despite concerns from faculty and students and a shaky track record for universities in other states that have gone back to campus during the pandemic.

Today's numbers: Iowa, North Dakota and Guam set records for new cases in a week, while Nevada, Tennessee, and Puerto Rico had a record number of deaths in a week, according to a Paste BN analysis of Johns Hopkins data through late Thursday. The U.S. has 5.5 million confirmed infections and more than 174,000 deaths. See the numbers in your area here, and check out where cases are rising here.

What do you want to know about the coronavirus? Submit your questions through this form. Judy from Nashville asks: Since so many people are wearing masks because of COVID-19, is it possible we will have fewer cases of regular flu this upcoming season?

"I think there's every likelihood that if we adhere to wearing masks, social distancing and avoiding crowds, we will also mitigate the transmission of the influenza virus," said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor and infectious disease expert at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. "But we're not doing a very good job with COVID, at the moment, so I wouldn't expect that we would be doing a very good job with influenza either."

Schaffner said public health experts are seeing a concerning decline in routine vaccinations among children and fear the possibility of a "twin-demic" this winter – a twin epidemic of COVID-19 and flu.

"This year, it’s more important than ever that everyone get vaccinated," Schaffner said. "The last thing we need is another substantial influenza outbreak that will send even more patients to the ER."

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– Grace Hauck, Paste BN breaking news reporter, @grace_hauck