Coronavirus Watch: Third vaccine candidate enters Phase 3 trials

Good news: A third COVID-19 vaccine candidate has entered Phase 3 clinical trials in the U.S.

As part of "Operation Warp Speed," British biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, in partnership with Oxford University, began testing with plans to enroll 30,000 adult volunteers, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced Monday.

Two other vaccine candidates – developed by Moderna and Pfizer – are also in Phase 3 trials in the U.S.

It's Tuesday, and this is the Coronavirus Watch from the Paste BN Network. Here is the most significant news of the day, as of 1 p.m. ET:

• Dr. Anthony Fauci said Labor Day weekend will be key in determining whether the U.S. gets a "running start" at containing the coronavirus this fall. He said it’s important to avoid a surge in cases like those seen after the Memorial Day and July 4th holidays.
• New York City is delaying sending students back to classrooms by 11 days to give teachers and schools more time to prepare, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday.
• Meanwhile, children returned to school Tuesday in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the world's initial coronavirus epidemic forced months of lockdowns. The city has not seen new cases of local transmission for weeks. 
• Asymptomatic transmission? A study of 91 children who tested positive for the coronavirus found that 22% did not show any symptoms. And one-fifth of the children who showed no symptoms were still shedding virus three weeks after they were infected, according to the study in JAMA Pediatrics.
• Some businesses are reopening this week in South Florida, and Gov. Ron DeSantis says he’s looking at reopening bars and nightclubs.
• Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said he is wary of a COVID-19 spike just as the state's case numbers drop below the red line as displaced Hurricane Laura victims scatter across the state and first responders and volunteers flow into the most damaged areas to help.
• Detroit held its own Memorial Day on Monday to honor the 1,500-pus city residents who were victims of COVID-19. 
• Californians suffered through their deadliest COVID-19 month in August, when the state reported 3,707 deaths. But infection and hospitalization rates have been in decline in recent weeks, and average daily deaths also began dropping in recent weeks, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis.

Today's numbers: A Paste BN analysis of the data through late Monday shows Iowa, Montana and South Dakota set records for new cases over a seven-day period. Arkansas and Hawaii had a record number of deaths over seven days.

The U.S. has more than 6 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 183,000 deaths. Globally, there are 25 million cases and more than 851,000 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins University data. 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.

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