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What you need to know about the coronavirus today

Biden to outline how he would oversee vaccine
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden will lay out on Wednesday how, if elected, he plans to develop and distribute a safe coronavirus vaccine, seeking to draw a contrast with U.S. President Donald Trump’s approach to combating the pandemic.

Biden will deliver remarks in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, after getting briefed by public health experts.

The speech is part of a delicate balancing act the former vice president has struck in recent weeks, as Trump has suggested a vaccine could be approved ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

Biden has questioned whether Trump is pressuring agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to sign off on a vaccine to boost his re-election prospects.

UK testing in chaos
Amid growing anger over a bottleneck in Britain’s creaking coronavirus testing system, the government promised to do whatever it takes to boost laboratory capacity that has left people across the land with no way to get a COVID-19 test.

In an attempt to slow one of the highest coronavirus death tolls in the West, Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised in May to create a “world-beating” system to test and trace people exposed to the virus.

But repeated attempts by Reuters reporters to get COVID-19 tests failed, while at a walk-in testing center at Southend-on-Sea in eastern England hundreds of people were queuing to get a test - some from as early as 0500 GMT.

Russia to sell 100 million doses of vaccine to India
Russia’s sovereign wealth fund has agreed to supply 100 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine, Sputnik-V, to Indian drug company Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, as Moscow speeds up plans to distribute its shot abroad.

The deal comes after the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) reached agreements with Indian manufacturers to produce 300 million doses of the vaccine in India, which is a major consumer of Russian oil and arms.

Dr Reddy’s, one of India’s top pharmaceutical companies, will carry out Phase III clinical trials of the vaccine in India, pending regulatory approval, RDIF said in a statement. Deliveries to India could begin in late 2020.

The agreement comes as India’s coronavirus cases surged past 5 million.

China inoculates before vaccine trials completed
China is inoculating tens of thousands of its citizens with experimental coronavirus vaccines and attracting international interest in their development, despite concerns among experts over the safety of drugs that have not completed standard testing.

Aiming to protect essential workers and reduce the likelihood of a resurgence of the pandemic, the vaccines are also grabbing attention in the global scramble by governments to secure supplies.

China’s approach runs counter to that of many Western countries, where experts have warned against authorizing the emergency use of vaccines that have not completed testing, citing a lack of understanding about longer-term efficacy and potential side effects.

Australia on track to relax extended hard lockdown
Australia’s Victoria state on Wednesday said the daily rise in infections in its coronavirus hot spot of Melbourne has eased further, putting it on course to relax an extended hard lockdown in the city by the end of the month.

Construction sites, manufacturing plants, warehouses and childcare facilities can reopen, allowing more than 100,000 workers to return to their jobs, if the 14-day rolling average is under 50 cases as of Sept. 28.

From late Wednesday, in regional Victoria, outdoor gatherings of up to 10 people will be permitted, residents of a household will be allowed to visit one other home, and cafes will be able to seat up to 50 people outdoors.

Track the spread with our global and U.S.-focused live graphics.

Breakingviews - Corona Capital: Fashion, Bank branches, Tourism. Read concise views on the pandemic’s financial fallout from Breakingviews columnists across the globe.

Reuters reporters and editors around the world are investigating the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

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The splitting headaches began when smoke from wildfires rolled in around Tim Hunt’s suburban Seattle home. Next came a debilitating fatigue. As deadly wildfires rage across the U.S. West, Hunt and others are struggling with some of the world’s worst air pollution. “I get out of bed to eat and drink water, and go back to bed,” said the 64-year-old retired software engineer, who suffered lung damage in 2017 from a bad case of the flu. “It’s like there’s not enough oxygen in the air.”

Hurricane Sally made landfall on Alabama’s Gulf Coast as a Category Two hurricane, spreading strong winds inland across southeastern Alabama and western Florida. Upon landfall, winds were clocked at 105 miles per hour (165 km per hour), able to cause extensive damage, according to the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. The hurricane also poses the risk of “catastrophic and life-threatening” flooding along portions of the north-central Gulf Coast.

An obscure Hong Kong-registered company stands at the center of the U.S. criminal case against China’s Huawei Technologies and its chief financial officer. U.S. authorities allege the giant telecom-gear maker used the firm to skirt American economic sanctions on Iran between 2007 and 2014. Huawei has said it sold the business in 2007 and denies any wrongdoing.