 Welcome to the coronavirus weekly brief. I'm your host, Melissa Sallick-Ferck with New America. Here are the headlines you need to know. A trial of the University of Oxford's vaccine candidate is running into problems because the rate of infection is falling in the UK. Their trial will test the infection rate of people who received the vaccine candidate compared with those who receive a placebo. However, if the overall rate of infection is low, the results may not be able to demonstrate efficacy in the time required. In the UK, 10,000 people have volunteered for a trial to test the vaccine in the coming week, but Adrian Hill, director of Oxford's Jenner Institute and one of the vaccine's developers, says that he expects fewer than 50 of them to catch the virus, and if fewer than 20 test positive, the results may be useless, the telegraph cited him as saying. The Oxford vaccine candidate has received a huge boost Thursday with the US government pledging 1.2 billion in funding and allowing a 30,000-person trial in the United States. Science Magazine writes at the head of GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, Seth Berkeley, quote, says clinical trials of the Oxford vaccine may yield an efficacy signal by October, but he doubts there will be enough data to satisfy regulators evaluating whether the license the product, unquote. Hill speculates that they may have to move trials to other countries where there are higher rates of infection. Public health officials need to build public trust in vaccines by communicating vaccine expectations clearly and emphasizing vaccine safety, not speed in clinical trials, say health experts. Stat News writes that, quote, in the public imagination, vaccines are often seen effectively as cure-alls like inoculations against measles. Rather than those vaccines, however, the COVID-19 vaccines in development may be more like those that protect against influenza, reducing the risk of contracting the disease and of experiencing severe symptoms should infection occur, unquote. Childhood vaccines like those for measles and polio are more than 90% effective, but the seasonal flu vaccine may be only 30 to 50% effective, though estimates vary. Like a flu vaccine, a coronavirus vaccine may give partial protection to individuals rather than the full protection that could yield herd immunity that many politicians seem to expect from a vaccine. Paul Offit, a vaccine researcher and author of a book about the botch 1955 polio vaccine, told Science Magazine that he worries that U.S. presidential election ambitions are driving the timeline for the vaccine and questions whether the planned trials with thousands of people could be completed in time. Offit, among others, is also concerned that accelerating vaccine trials could lead to vaccines with side effects, which are sometimes, quote, detected only when a candidate moves from thousands to millions of people, unquote. He's not the only one. BioCentury warns that public health officials who focus on speed and do not emphasize safety and efficacy in their work and in their communication with the public risk losing the public's trust, which includes not only vaccine deniers, but also those who are concerned about a, quote, vaccine that hasn't been thoroughly and honestly tested, unquote. Trump's, quote, unquote, game changer drug, hydroxychloroquine is associated with increased mortality in a study of 96,000 COVID patients. Hydroxychloroquine, President Trump's game changer drug, which he announced he was taking as a preventative last week and now says he has finished, does not appear to offer any benefit in treating COVID-19 patients and is associated with higher risk of death and abnormal heart rhythms, reported a study of almost 100,000 patients published Friday in the medical journal, The Lancet. In light of the new information, the World Health Organization has suspended their testing of hydroxychloroquine, pending further safety information, reports Bloomberg. Cardiovascular side effects are particularly important because COVID-19, which first appeared to be mainly a respiratory disease, now turns out to attack multiple organ systems, including the heart and cardiovascular system and can create severe blood clotting. Hydroxychloroquine is approved to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, but at lower doses and in patients who were generally otherwise healthy reports the Washington Post. The study found that those given hydroxychloroquine had a 34% increase in risk of mortality and a 137% increased risk of a serious heart arrhythmia. For those receiving hydroxychloroquine and an antibiotic, there was a 45% increased risk of death and a 411% increased risk of serious heart arrhythmias, writes the Washington Post. The Lancet study is an observational study that analyzes past records, not a clinical trial that randomly assigns the treatment or placebo to patients and can offer stronger evidence about a drug's safety or efficacy. However, the study's extremely large set of patients and its design, which focused on earlier treatment in patients with less severe cases, making it a convincing addition to the existing data on risk of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19, according to in the pipeline. And healthcare workers around the world see more compensation for dealing with coronavirus but not in the US. All over the world, governments are supporting healthcare workers who are risking their lives to save others amid the coronavirus pandemic by offering them bonuses or hazard pay according to a summary of global approaches by the Washington Post. In Ghana, healthcare workers are receiving a 50% raise on top of income tax waivers for working to stop the outbreak. Canada announced salary increases. France included bonuses for doctors and nurses as part of its $120 billion stimulus package. Russia took a similar approach, but some emergency responders say they haven't received any money yet. In Iraq, one governor promised free land to public health employees. The United Kingdom is paying families of medical workers who die of COVID-19, a lump sum of what equates to $65,000. Yet in the United States, no national hazard pay has been approved and healthcare workers have even faced reduced hours and pay as hospitals lose non-essential business according to mercury news. And the USDA and DOJ are set to investigate price fixing for meat. Meat prices are at a record high in supermarkets, but the prices for cattle are at all-time lows. In April, the price for beef was $6.22 per pound, nearly 26 cents more compared to March. Further, the average cost for cattle was below $100 per 100 pounds in April, contrasting from the five-year average of $135 per 100 pounds. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Department of Justice are examining whether the meatpacking industry is price-fixing. The U.S. Department of Justice is focusing on America's largest meatpackers, including Tyson, JBS, National Beef, and Cargill. These companies comprise nearly 85% of the U.S. meatpacking market and have been the subject of previous antitrust lawsuits. Further, the USDA is set to review price fluctuations in beef according to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue. Meatpacking giants have stated beef prices have increased during the pandemic because factories are operating at lower capacity. However, the industry has long been scrutinized for monopolistic practices, which are egging on the current probe, writes Politico. To see our daily brief, go to the address and our show notes and follow us on Twitter at New America ISP and tune in next Monday for our next episode.