With an ever-climbing tally of infections, deaths, and calculations about how quickly the virus is spreading, the numbers can start to lose meaning. But one million is a resonant milestone.
According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the world has now lost more than one million lives to the new coronavirus. It’s easy to draw analogies—one million people is the equivalent of just over the entire population of a country like Djibouti, or just under the populace of Cyprus. Perhaps more sobering would be to think of that number less as an entity and more in terms of the precious individual lives it represents. It’s a chance to remind ourselves that each of those deaths is a mother, a father, a grandmother, a grandfather, a friend, a loved one.
It’s also a reminder that we must learn from these deaths. When the novel coronavirus appeared last winter, even the best experts were initially helpless to combat infections in a world where almost nobody had any immunity. As a result, the mortality rate, which hovered just under 3% globally starting in late January, slowly began to creep upward, doubling in two months and hitting a peak of more than 7% at the end of April before inching downward again:
While every death is one too many, public health experts now see some hope in the fact that while new cases continue to pile up around the world, deaths are starting to slow. That declining case fatality curve is fueled by everything we have learned about the virus and everything that we have put into practice to fight it. That includes using experimental therapies like the antiviral drug remdesivir, as well as anti-inflammatory medicines that can reduce damage to patients’ lungs and respiratory tissues.
Still, the death toll reflects the unequal distribution of health care around the world. While developed countries are able to rely on existing resources—including hospital systems equipped with the latest medical tools and well-trained nurses and doctors—those resources aren’t as robust in lower income countries. That puts these countries at greater risk of higher fatality rates; without medical equipment and personnel to ramp up testing and isolate infected people, or to care for the sickest patients, deaths quickly follow new infections.
That tragic reality is being borne out in recent trends. While the U.S. continues to lead the world in overall cases and deaths, the burden of deaths is shifting to places like Brazil, India and Mexico. In countries less equipped to survive a prolonged economic lockdown, pressure to reopen will provide more fertile ground for the virus to spread—and to claim more lives—before better treatments and vaccines can start to suppress its relentless blaze of despair.
More than 33.3 million people around the world had been sickened by COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 1 million people have died. Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
On Sept. 28, there were 275,891 new cases and 3,912 new deaths confirmed globally. Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending:
Here is every country with over 350,000 confirmed cases to date ("per cap" is number per 100,000 people):
Russia is taking serious chances with its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, conducting Phase III trials while simultaneously rolling out mass public vaccinations with the still-unproven drug, Reuters reports. Five thousand test subjects were inoculated on Sept. 9; the first six weeks of data will be available by Oct. 21. Unlike other countries and private vaccine developers—which already have similar results but have not released them—Russia intends to make its findings public. The project’s leader, Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology head Alexander Gintsburg, justifies the accelerated pace by comparing the pandemic to wartime. “People are dying just like during a war,” he said. “But this fast-tracked pace is not synonymous, as some media have suggested, with corners being cut. No way.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had only bad news earlier this month when he shut the country back down to slow a new wave of the coronavirus pandemic. But today, his government is providing some economic solace, offering new career training to people who have lost their jobs during the lockdowns and are not likely to be rehired when things improve. The program will train people to become construction workers, mechanics, engineers, IT experts and lab technicians, the Associated Press reports.
Ion Aliman, mayor of the Romanian village of Deveselu, is clearly a beloved figure, recently winning 1,057 of 1,600 votes in a town of just 3,000 people—a landslide by any measure. The only hitch: Alimon died of COVID-19 10 days before the election, the AP reports. In place of a victory celebration, crowds of voters went to Alimon’s grave to light candles and pay their respects. Aliman’s deputy, Nicolae Dobre, will likely step in to the job. Asked by a local TV station how the voters could choose a deceased candidate, Dobre answered: “None of the other contenders got the same trust from the voters.”
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded more than 7.1 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 205,000 people have died. Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
On Sept. 28, there were 33,037 new cases and 316 new deaths confirmed in the U.S. Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending:
Trump Administration officials over the summer pushed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to minimize the risks of children returning to school and to look for data that would support schools' reopening, the New York Timesreports. White House staffers were also pressed to sidestep the CDC altogether and look for their own data that would justify a return-to-school plan. Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, reportedly got involved herself, pressuring the CDC to include in its recommendations a finding from the Department of Health and Human Services that keeping schools closed would negatively affect children's mental health.
New York City’s widely celebrated success at bouncing back from the springtime depths of the pandemic is being threatened in at least nine ZIP codes, where the daily rate of positive tests has reached 3.25%—above the 3% threshold that must be maintained for schools to remain open, per local rules. As Bloomberg News reports, the affected areas include several Orthodox Jewish communities, where resistance to mask wearing and other public health measures has persisted. The city is deploying 350 test-and-trace workers, sending seven sound trucks, and making thousands of robocalls to the affected areas to track outbreaks and get the public-health message out.
It may not come as much of a surprise that bored and stressed Americans have been turning to a familiar palliative during the pandemic: alcohol. According to a study published today in JAMA Network Open , as the pandemic was beginning back in March, overall alcohol sales increased 54% nationwide and online sales in particular jumped a staggering 262%. More recently, the study found, adults report drinking an average of 14% more than they were a year ago at this time. Heavy drinking—four or more drinks for women in a two-hour period and five or more for men—is on the rise, too. In the case of women it’s jumped a disturbing 41%—though that’s an increase above a very low baseline; women report heavy drinking less than one day per month overall.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of September 29, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
The Vaccine Rollout Could Be Chaotic
The leading COVID-19 vaccine contenders both use mRNA technology, not killed or attenuated viruses, to confer immunity. That makes them quicker to produce, and likely will allow them to be first to market. But these kinds of vaccines are exceedingly fragile, required to be kept in cold-chain temperatures of -94° F. The fanfare when the vaccines are released could end fast if distribution challenges limit the drug to only a lucky few, while the rest wait for later vaccines produced in other ways that are easier to ship, The Atlantic reports. Read more here.
How to Deal With Narcissistic Mask-Refusers
As if the virus wasn’t bad enough by itself, it might be getting a boost from another human affliction: narcissism. Here, the Washington Post explores the idea that feelings of entitlement, aggrievement and being above the rules may be contributing to many people's refusal to wear masks despite public health officials' pleas. The Post recommends multiple do’s and don’ts for approaching rule-breakers who might be narcissists: do be respectful; do use the first person plural (“we’re all in this together,”); don’t roll your eyes or appear disdainful; don’t escalate into anger. Most important: Do know when it’s time to give up and walk away. Read more here.
Highways Take a Toll On Local Residents' Health
Exposure to air pollution can exacerbate a given person’s case of COVID-19, with lower income people living near expressways and factories showing higher death rates from the disease. The problem is best captured by new research conducted by the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science, studying families living near the Cross Bronx and Major Deegan Expressways in The Bronx. During the early stages of the pandemic when New York was shut down and the highways were traffic free, Bronx residents had it easier. Now that many of the limitations have been lifted and the roads are full again, their health outlook has declined, The City reports. Read more here.
Separate and Decidedly Unequal Schooling
Brown v. Board of Education long ago made it settled law that children should receive equal and integrated education everywhere in the U.S. But the celebrated Supreme Court ruling never reckoned on a school-shuttering pandemic, and as millions of children are still learning entirely or partially remotely, the gulfs between the haves and have nots—kids in homes with high-speed broadband versus kids without; households where parents can stay home and help their kids learn versus those where both parents must leave for or focus on work—are leading to gaps that could linger long after the pandemic ends, Reuters reports. Read more here.
Disaster Is Looming for Airline Workers
Few economic sectors have been harder hit by the pandemic than the airline industry. With travel cratering, tens of thousands of workers have been hanging onto their jobs only with the help of the federal Payroll Protection Program, which guarantees salaries for employees on the condition that companies not lay off workers before the program’s expiration on Sept. 30. With that deadline just one day away and Congress unable to reach an agreement on much of anything coronavirus-related, massive job losses seem inevitable, Politico reports. Read more here.
—Jeffrey Kluger
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Today's newsletter was written by Alice Park and Jeffrey Kluger, and edited by Alex Fitzpatrick.
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