Coronavirus Watch: Oxford vaccine shows encouraging early results

We've heard good news about two promising coronavirus vaccine candidates this week, and the University of Oxford on Thursday announced encouraging early testing results for yet another.

The vaccine being developed Oxford researchers and U.K.-based AstraZeneca appears to trigger a "robust immune response" in healthy adults, according to the Phase II testing data. Phase III trials involving more than 30,000 volunteers are underway.

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

• Dr. Anthony Fauci is urging Americans to "think twice" about traveling and having indoor gatherings for the holidays. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also recommending against travel for Thanksgiving.
• Almost 100,000 long-term care residents in the U.S. have died in the pandemic, and advocates for the elderly say tens of thousands more are succumbing to neglect by overwhelmed staffs and slow declines from isolation.
• Wash your hands, wear a mask and keep your distance. As the pandemic drags on, those protocols continue to draw homage from public health experts. But the era of madly scrubbing surfaces is ending as those same experts suggest the effort does little to mitigate the virus threat.
• Europe sees dip in new cases: New cases of COVID-19 in Europe decreased to 1.8 million cases last week, down from over 2 million the week before.

Today's numbers: The U.S. has reported more than 11.5 million cases and 250,000 deaths. Globally, there have been 56.4 million cases and 1.3 million fatalities. See the numbers in your area here, and check out where cases are rising here.

Perspective on the numbers: The U.S. has 4.3% of the world's population but accounts for nearly 19% of all COVID-19 fatalities worldwide. The death toll the virus has inflicted among Americans is more than twice as large as the number of U.S. service members who died in World War I. Only two American conflicts have claimed more lives than the coronavirus – the Civil War and World War II.

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