There was always a quasi-military sound to Operation Warp Speed—the Trump Administration’s push to accelerate vaccine development and delivery—with its sense of an enemy to be vanquished (the virus) and an army to do the fighting (the doctors and drug makers). But with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine already approved and Moderna’s version on the cusp of being green-lit, there is a real-life, four-star Army general helping to run the show.
He is General Gustave Perna, the man charged with overseeing logistics for distributing what will eventually be hundreds of millions of vaccine vials around the country. As my colleagues W.J. Hennigan and Alice Park report, Perna helps direct those operations out of what is nothing short of a war room—the Vaccine Operations Center (VOC) in downtown Washington—monitoring shipments as they are flown and trucked around the country to the more than 600 sites where vaccines are already being administered.
On the operations floor of the windowless room, dozens of analysts work behind rows of computer monitors. On the far wall in front of them, four large flat screens glow with real-time information about the day’s deliveries. On a recent day there was a serious problem to sort out. Every box of vaccine aboard a truck or plane is equipped with a GPS beacon, a temperature monitor and a bar code, and two boxes in one truck in Northern California had plunged below the accepted threshold of -112°F.
A call was made to the truck driver to stop, and keep the trays in the vehicle. “They never left the truck,” Perna told reporters on Wednesday. “We returned them immediately back to Pfizer and we sent immediate shipments to replace those two trays.”
Eyes are being kept on shipments in other ways too. FedEx is employing a new monitoring program in collaboration with Microsoft, called Surround, which uses historical data around FedEx’s routes, weather and mapping data, along with analytics capabilities, to expedite delivery . Other new software is also helping. The government has developed a platform called Tiberius that enables states and federal agencies to see their orders and track their vaccines. As Deacon Maddox, a retired Army colonel and now OWS’ chief of plans, operations and analytics, explains it, Tiberius lets all state health departments monitor “all of their enrolled providers and they can dive in and really go into great detail on making decisions on where they’re going to send the vaccine within their jurisdiction.”
Even the most cutting-edge cargo—like newly invented, life-saving vaccines—will always have to move through the older-tech choke points of trucks and trains and planes to get where they’re going. To beat a pandemic the likes of which we’ve not seen in the modern era, a lot of smart minds are coming together to speed that journey.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory committee is meeting again today, this time to discuss the COVID-19 vaccine made by Moderna. The agency earlier this week made public a report confirming that the shot is safe and almost 95% effective, and the committee is expected to recommend its authorization for emergency use. If all goes well, the U.S. could have a second vaccine available by the end of this week, greatly increasing the number of Americans able to get inoculated in the near future.
A second U.S. health care worker experienced an allergic reaction after receiving Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine this week, CBS News reports. Echoing similar stories out of the U.K., reports surfaced yesterday about a female health care worker who experienced a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine but recovered. Apparently, a male health care worker at the same hospital also suffered an adverse reaction, but he reportedly experienced only minor symptoms and was back to normal within an hour.
Health care providers have noticed one pleasant surprise related to the Pfizer vaccine, though: The drug’s vials seem to hold more than their intended five doses. Pharmacists have reported getting six or even seven doses out of a single vial, which could prove an unexpected way to help relieve vaccine supply issues.
It’s a good thing that children tend to develop milder cases of COVID-19 than adults, because it increasingly seems like it will be a while before they’ll be eligible to receive the new vaccines, as the Associated Press reports. The new Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is authorized for people 16 and older, with testing for children as young as 12 having begun only in October and expected to take several more months. Moderna began testing its vaccine in children 12 to 17 only this month and is expected to follow them for a year. The company will not even begin testing in people younger than 12 until 2021.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
More than 74.2 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. 16, there were 734,370 new cases and 13,529 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:
French President Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for COVID-19. Macron reportedly got tested after experiencing symptoms, though French authorities have not yet offered details on his condition. The President—who in the past week met with both German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa—will continue working while in a seven-day isolation.
The Prime Minister of Japan, a country lauded for its effective response to COVID-19, is under fire for attending a group dinner with seven people over the age of 70, despite his own government’s urging to keep social gatherings small. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said yesterday that, "There was sufficient social distance with other participants, but I am seriously remorseful for inviting the public skepticism."
Leaked audio of actor Tom Cruise lambasting London-based Mission: Impossible crew members who violated COVID-19 safety protocols—apparently by standing too close together—is making the rounds online. In the expletive-laden clip, Cruise threatens to fire crew members who flout safety precautions in the future. “We are creating thousands of jobs, you motherf***ers,” Cruise says. “I don't ever want to see it again. Ever!"
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded more than 16.9 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 307,429 people have died. On Dec. 16, there were 247,403 new cases and 3,656 new deaths confirmed in the U.S.—both new daily records, surpassing previous highs set last Friday.
California yesterday reported nearly 54,000 new cases of COVID-19. That massive number accounts for about a fifth of all U.S. COVID-19 diagnoses recorded yesterday, and represents a 50% increase over the state’s recent average case counts. Intensive care units across the state are running dangerously low on beds, which suggests that the enormous case-count spike may translate into a grim increase in deaths in the coming weeks.
Even as pharmaceutical developers and distribution networks do the seemingly impossible—inventing new vaccines and getting them out to everywhere in the country—Congress continues to prove itself unable to do the eminently possible, as CNN reports . Negotiations over a $900 billion COVID relief bill are coming up hard against a Friday deadline by which lawmakers have to approve a different, $1.4 trillion package to keep the government funded through next September. House lawmakers want to tie the two bills together, creating greater urgency to get them passed before the end of the week. If no deal is indeed reached by the deadline, it will take a smaller stopgap spending bill to keep the wheels of government moving.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Dec. 17, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Let’s Talk About Side Effects. Now.
No matter how effective the new vaccines are, if people don’t take them they’ll be useless. As Wired reports, far more effort has gone into developing the vaccines than into educating the public that there can indeed be side effects, describing what they are, and offering reassurance that they are transitory. With an anti-vax community already weaponizing any negative vaccine news, this could mean trouble. Read more here.
Yes, COVID-19 is Way Different From the Flu
Too many people who don’t take the pandemic seriously argue that a case of COVID-19 is really no different from the flu—and we certainly don’t wear masks and shut down cities every flu season. TIME’s new COVID advice column explains the difference between the two diseases and why COVID-19 must be treated very differently. Read more here.
Bye-Bye Snow Days?
Today’s beautiful blast of snow across the northeast has been one grace note in what promises to be a brutal COVID-19 season. But, as The Washington Post reports, with students and teachers now accustomed to distance learning, it’s possible that one of childhood’s most cherished traditions—the snow day—may be no more. Read more here.
Yes, the Disease is Hard on Young Adults Too
Older adults may be more susceptible to severe cases of COVID-19, but people from 25 to 44 are more susceptible than they think. As the New York Times reports, overall deaths in this age group this year are exceeding historical norms (from March through July, for example, there were about 12,000 more deaths than should be expected in this cohort) and COVID-19 is likely to blame. 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 Jamie Ducharme and Jeffrey Kluger, and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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