A few hours after I woke up this morning, I watched live as Sandra Lindsay, an intensive care unit nurse in Queens, New York, became the first person in the U.S. to receive a COVID-19 vaccination outside the scope of a clinical trial. “As a nurse, my practice is guided by science, so I trust science,” Lindsay said about receiving the vaccine; the procedure was televised in an effort to boost public trust in the shot.
A few minutes later, while gathering stories for this newsletter, I watched as Lindsay’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, offered a dire warning for New York more broadly: the city’s outbreak is worsening, and if matters don’t improve, he may have to once again order a full shutdown. The pandemic is worsening basically everywhere else in the country, too, just as experts predicted it would as winter sets in.
For many of us, this kind of mental whiplash is likely to characterize the next few months. On one hand, today is a landmark day in the fight against COVID-19, and we should mark it as such—it’s critical to celebrate our wins where we can. But this isn’t V-E or V-J Day; there will be no formal declaration of surrender aboard a mighty warship. Even as the vaccine begins rolling out across the country, the death toll will continue to rise. Nationally, we’re already losing an equivalent of a 9/11 attack every day, and it will likely get worse.
In fact, just before today's newsletter was sent, the U.S. reached a new, grim milestone: 300,000 total deaths due to COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University.
That dissonance is going to be hard to live with. Personally, it’s a little easier to motivate myself to get through the next few months with a better sense of the future—it’s helpful to know that, if all goes well, things will start to feel more normal by next summer or fall. At the same time, that knowledge will make each loss over the coming months hurt even more, our pain amplified by a sense that each of the virus’ victims maybe could’ve made it if they just avoided infection for a little bit longer—if our leaders hadn’t been so painfully slow to take the virus seriously, even well after its threat became clear. There’s also the very real fear that, as vaccination begins, people will let their guard down prematurely, further exacerbating the outbreak.
The key, I think, will be to hold on to the idea that the cavalry has arrived and the tides are beginning to turn, but the battle still needs to be fought. We will undoubtedly suffer more losses, potentially heavy ones. But we will, eventually, win. And that’s worth fighting for.
VACCINE TRACKER
The first shots administered in the Empire State will be followed with more vaccinations throughout the U.S. today and onwards, with health care workers, nursing home residents and other at-risk groups first in line. While the beginning of mass vaccination in the U.S. is undoubtedly good news, it will take many months for enough people to be inoculated to truly turn the tide against the pandemic that’s been ravaging the country—and the world—for nearly a year. In part, that’s because it will take time to produce, ship and administer the hundreds of thousands of shots needed to inoculate wide swaths of the population. Moreover, each U.S. state will run its own vaccine distribution, leading to potentially messy results, as my colleague Philip Elliott writes.
While Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla is eager to receive his company’s coronavirus vaccine, he promised on CNBC this morning that he wouldn’t cut the line to do so. "I'm 59 years old, in good health, I'm not working in the front line,” he said. “So, my type is not recommended to get vaccinated.” He did, however, leave the door open to an early vaccination if it was done as part of an effort to boost public confidence in the shot’s safety and efficacy.
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine has arrived in Canada, too, the Associated Press reports. Ottawa is expecting nearly 250,000 doses for delivery this month. All told, it has agreed to purchase enough doses for more than 150 million people, per Bloomberg. That’s more than four times Canada’s population, but the government has promised to give any excess to less well-off countries.
The Pfizer-BioNTech shot has also received approval in Singapore, the AP reports, where the first shipment is expected to arrive by the end of the month. Singapore’s government has also agreed to buy vaccine doses from the U.S.-based Moderna as well as Sinovac, a Chinese biotech firm.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
More than 72.2 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 1.6 million people have died. On Dec. 13, there were 547,656 new cases and 7,384 new deaths confirmed globally.
Editor's note: On Nov. 25, Turkey changed its policy to include asymptomatic cases in its daily numbers. On Dec. 10, the country provided a large case dump to bring the total historical reporting in line with this new standard. However, the data are not yet available to accurately distribute this increase retroactively. The result is a significant anomaly that impacts the charts and maps both for Turkey, and, due to the country’s large case numbers, the world.
Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
And here is every country with over 1 million confirmed cases:
Germany, where Christmastime is usually a nationwide celebration marked by time with family and visits to the country’s famed holiday markets, will be on strict lockdown for the season amid an alarming spike in COVID-19 cases, the New York Timesreports. Many stores and schools will be closed down, employers will be asked to let people work from home, and fewer people will be allowed to congregate indoors. “All of this will impact the holidays, we know that, but we have been forced to take action and that is what we are doing now,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday while announcing the new measures. Germany is now reporting a seven-day average of 24,113 new daily cases.
Leaders in Australia and New Zealand, where COVID-19 cases remain low to nonexistent, are moving towards launching a quarantine-free travel bubble between their two countries early next year, The Guardianreports. Such a bubble could at least partially reinvigorate both countries’ economies, particularly their travel and tourism sectors. While Australian officials seem ready to press ahead, their Kiwi counterparts say the plan still needs to be ironed out. “It is our intention to name a date...in the new year, once remaining details are locked down,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today.
The Philippines is working to finalize a deal to buy 25 million doses of Chinese biotech firm Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine, per Reuters, as part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s plan to inoculate all of his country’s roughly 106 million residents. Duterte, a controversial figure who has over the past few years been strengthening his country’s ties to Beijing, reportedly prefers Chinese- and Russian-made vaccine options over those produced in the West, underscoring the “vaccine geopolitics” that will be in play over the next few months and years.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded more than 16.3 million coronavirus cases as of 4 p.m. ET today. Over 300,000 people have died. On Dec. 13, there were 190,920 new cases and 1,389 new deaths confirmed in the U.S.
The U.S. passed a tragic line earlier today, officially reporting its 300,000th death due to COVID-19. That's a sobering figure under any circumstance, but particularly given the speed at which the the virus is killing more people. In the past week alone, nearly 17,000 people in the U.S. have died of COVID-19. And with hundreds of thousands of new cases reported every single day, next week's number may be even larger. There's no other country with an overall death count even close to the U.S., and, in per-capita terms, the U.S. is surpassed by only a handful of mostly very small countries.
The Trump Administration is backing off a plan to put White House officials at the front of the line for the COVID-19 vaccine, per NPR. That comes after reporting to the contrary over the weekend sparked criticism that White House staffers were being prioritized over front line health care workers, nursing home residents and other at-risk groups. However, if high-ranking public officials—especially the President—were to publicly receive the vaccine, perhaps even in a nationally broadcast event, it could bolster confidence in the shot’s safety and efficacy. (While President Trump already had and recovered from COVID-19, it’s unclear if people who get it once are immune from a second infection.)
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Dec. 14, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
How Science Beat the Virus
In his latest cover story for The Atlantic, science journalist Ed Yong goes deep on the scientific world’s battle against COVID-19, and reckons with its failures—including, as he writes, “warped incentives, wasteful practices, overconfidence, inequality, and a biomedical bias.” Read more here.
The Promises and Pitfalls of COVID Pass Apps
As mass vaccination gets underway, smartphone apps could be a convenient way for users to prove they’ve been inoculated, granting them access to workplaces or events. But such apps could also split society “into health pass haves and have-nots,” writes Natasha Singer at the New York Times. Read more here.
Too Many Meetings
Meeting overload was an issue in many workplaces even before the pandemic, writes independent journalist Anne Helen Petersen. But the outbreak has massively exacerbated the problem, “wedging” what used to be quick, fruitful office encounters “into meeting form,” she writes—depleting our time and energy in the process. Read more here.
The Death of a Jersey Icon
My adoptive home state of New Jersey is famous for plenty of things, both good (Springsteen, Taylor ham, the Jersey Shore) and, well, less so (expensive highway tolls, bad drivers, the Jersey Shore). But one of the Garden State’s undeniably great contributions is the 24/7 diner, where you can get your greasy spoon fix any time of day or night. The pandemic, however, has thrown the future of these legendary always-open joints into jeopardy, NJ.com reports. Read more here.
Thanks for reading. We hope you find the Coronavirus Brief newsletter to be a helpful tool to navigate this very complex situation, and welcome feedback at coronavirus.brief@time.com. If you have specific questions you'd like us to answer, please send them to covidquestions@time.com.
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Today's newsletter was written by Alex Fitzpatrick and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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