Frontline Workers Are TIME's Guardians of the Year
There has not been a year in recent memory when it was harder to be a doctor—or a nurse, or an EMT, or a respiratory therapist, or a home-health aide, or a nursing home staffer or a hospital housekeeper. Health care workers in 2020 were tasked not only with fighting a fatal pandemic, but also with countering the equally dangerous spread of misinformation and scientific resistance.
It's for both of those reasons that TIME chose frontline health workers—led by infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci—as our Guardians of the Year.
Fauci, the longtime head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has shaped the U.S.' public-health response for decades, through crises ranging from HIV/AIDS to a 2009 influenza pandemic. But even a veteran like Fauci couldn't have predicted the ferocious attacks on science flung at him this year from sources up to and including the White House. As TIME's Alice Park writes, Fauci never lost composure, repeatedly setting the record straight and putting facts over politics. The 79-year-old will continue his role in the forthcoming Biden Administration.
"If there is one challenge in your life you cannot walk away from, it is the most impactful pandemic in the last 102 years," Fauci told Alice.
But while Fauci was arguably the most visible face of pandemic response, at least in the U.S., countless battles went on in hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and ambulances everywhere this year. The assault on the world's health care workers has been relentless, as wave after wave of infections come crashing down, repeatedly leaving ICU beds full and pushing health care systems to the brink. The people caring for these patients are too often the ones holding their hands as they die. Health care workers are exhausted, burnt out and sometimes battling the lasting effects of COVID-19 themselves. While the 7 p.m. cheers and donated pizzas of the spring have largely faded away, health care workers' senses of duty and commitment has not.
TIME's Jeff Kluger, who wrote about these heroes from the frontline, says it's important to "honor not just the field generals of the pandemic, but the foot soldiers, who too often fight in anonymity."
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's vaccine advisory committee yesterday voted 17-4 in favor of authorizing Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in people 16 and older. The recommendation is non-binding, but the FDA is expected to authorize the vaccine imminently, potentially even as soon as tonight. (Washington Postreporting suggests White House officials have ordered FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn to resign if he does not approve the shot today, but Hahn denied the allegation.) Alex Azar, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said this morning that the FDA told Pfizer "they do intend to proceed toward an authorization for their vaccine" in the coming days. That means some hospitals could start administering doses—which are initially earmarked for health care workers and nursing home residents—early next week.
With all eyes on Pfizer's promising COVID-19 vaccine, some other companies are abandoning or seriously adjusting their development plans. European pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur announced today that their jointly developed vaccine likely will not be available until late 2021, after a laboratory mistake compromised data from clinical trials. Meanwhile, a vaccine under development in Australia will not advance beyond Phase 1 trials, after some study participants falsely tested positive for HIV—apparently a result of the shot being developed using a protein borrowed from the HIV virus.
In other development news, AstraZeneca will reportedly work with Russian researchers behind the country’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine to study whether combining its shot with the Russian shot improves their effectiveness. (AstraZeneca's shot is reportedly around 70% effective, while Sputnik V's developers have said it is more than 90% effective.) The collaboration began as a Twitter conversation, CNBC reports.
The Global Situation
Nearly 69.5 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 1.5 million people have died. On Dec. 10, there were 697,958 new cases and 12,482 new deaths confirmed globally. 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:
The World Health Organization has been accused of burying a damning report about Italy’s pandemic response, according to The Guardian. The report, which was posted on the WHO's website for one day in May, apparently called Italy's COVID-19 effort "improvised, chaotic and creative," in part because its pandemic response plans hadn't been updated since 2006. The report was allegedly taken down at the request of a WHO official who formerly worked for Italy's health ministry. The WHO said last week that the report contained "inaccuracies and inconsistencies," and said in a separate statement it was not reposted after being taken down due to a change in agency procedure.
A February conference has been linked to a staggering 1.6% of all U.S. COVID-19 cases, according to a study published yesterday in Science. The two-day conference, hosted in Boston by the biotech firm Biogen, attracted guests from all over the world. When participants got infected and traveled back to their home countries, they seeded new infections. Up to 300,000 cases can now be traced back to the conference, the study’s authors say.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded more than 15.6 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 292,000 people have died. On Dec. 10, there were 224,452 new cases and 2,768 new deaths confirmed in the U.S. Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said yesterday that there's one aspect of a proposed $900 billion coronavirus relief bill that Senate Republicans won't support, greatly shrinking its chances of passing. Democrats asked for $160 billion in funding for cash-strapped state and local governments, in exchange for a toned-down version of the corporate liability shield against COVID-19 lawsuits that McConnell has supported. With McConnell saying he won't support the state funding, Congress ultimately may not reach an agreement to extend vital relief programs keeping millions of American families and businesses afloat.
Dick Hinch, the 71-year-old speaker of New Hampshire's House of Representatives, died from COVID-19 on Wednesday, just days after he was elected. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu called his death a "tragic and cautionary tale," and blasted lawmakers who continue to ignore the state's mask mandate. "For those who are just out there doing the opposite just to make some ridiculous political point, it is horribly wrong," Sununu said. "Please use your heads. Don't act like a bunch of children, frankly."
Meanwhile, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced today he is suspending indoor dining in New York City as of Monday, as COVID-19 hospitalizations and test-positivity rates soar. Cuomo offered no timeline for reopening dining rooms. The decision raises the question of whether New York City will adopt additional lockdown measures as winter continues.
A McKinsey & Company survey of U.S. adults published yesterday found that nearly half of respondents are likely to be "cautious adopters" of a COVID-19 vaccine. Forty-five percent of people who took the poll said they'd like to wait between three and 12 months to get the shot, or until they feel confident in it. By contrast, 37% were "interested adopters" who said they'd get a vaccine shortly after one is authorized or even participate in a trial for an experimental shot.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Dec. 11, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Americans Need Better Pandemic Advice
Writing for The Atlantic, epidemiologist and harm-reduction advocate Julia Marcus argues that Americans deserve better than "just say no" guidance about seeing loved ones this holiday season. "Very few people want to get infected or get others sick," she writes. "Acknowledging and meeting people's needs will reduce risk behavior; finger-wagging won't." Read more here.
Six Feet May Not Be Enough to Stop COVID-19
A study making the rounds online this week describes a person who got sick with COVID-19 after spending just five minutes in a restaurant, 20 feet away from an infected person. The research raises fresh concerns about airborne transmission indoors. Read more here.
The Case for Single-Dose Vaccination
Pfizer's promising COVID-19 vaccine works best when given in two doses, but clinical trials suggest even a single dose offers some protection against disease. Some experts are now arguing that, with supplies limited, it would be better for lots of people to get one dose, rather than fewer people getting two doses, Alexandra Sifferlin explains in this Medium piece. 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 edited by Alex Fitzpatrick.
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