Somewhere in the United Kingdom right now is a very lucky arm—an arm that will, at some point tomorrow, be the first to get jabbed with Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine outside the scope of a clinical trial. When that happens, the U.K. will become one of the world’s first countries to begin a mass vaccination campaign against the coronavirus. (Russia beat everyone else to the punch by a few days with its aptly named “Sputnik V” vaccine, though many outside scientists question that program’s scientific rigor.)
The U.K.’s mass vaccination efforts will start small. It has received just 800,000 doses, but each recipient requires two shots about three weeks apart, so that’s enough to inoculate just 400,000 of the country’s roughly 67 million people. And that’s assuming everything goes well. The Pfizer vaccine, which needs to be kept at downright Hoth-like temperatures, is difficult to store and transport; it wouldn’t be surprising if there are some hiccups with the initial rollout.
Indeed, while those of us outside the U.K. may look upon the English, Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish with not a small amount of jealousy, we may still benefit from the vaccine rollout there. Think of those countries as early adopters of a new technology, working out any bugs in the software so the rest of us can enjoy a more stable version 1.1 release (I’m specifically talking about the rollout process and logistics here; the Pfizer vaccine itself has been thoroughly tested and shown to be both safe and mind-bogglingly effective).
While the U.K. was quick to approve the Pfizer vaccine, here in the United States, we’ll have to wait at least a little bit longer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is meeting to discuss the Pfizer vaccine on Thursday; approval and distribution should follow quickly thereafter. Moderna’s shot is up next, likely followed by another from AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
Still, most of the world will have to wait months, not weeks, to be vaccinated (and, for some in the developing world, possibly even years). With the vaccines themselves still in short supply, the first shots will go to the most at-risk, including medical workers and nursing home residents. But even if you’re somewhere around 200 millionth in line, as I am, you may find some comfort in this idea: the more at-risk people in a given community who get inoculated, the lower the risk to everyone else, even if they haven’t been vaccinated yet, as that should help reduce community spread.
Living through the COVID-19 pandemic is hard. TIME's new advice column is here to help, with expert-guided answers to your most pressing coronavirus questions. Need help breaking the news that you won't be home for the holidays? Deciding if that dinner party is safe to attend? Fighting through your quarantine fatigue? Our health reporters will consult experts who can help find a safe and practical solution. Send us your pandemic dilemmas at covidquestions@time.com.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
More than 67 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. 6, there were 533,694 new cases and 7,188 new deaths confirmed globally.
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:
Italy’s latest round of coronavirus lockdown measures seem to be working, with its last remaining “red zone”—Abruzzo—getting downgraded to an “orange zone” today, CNN reports. The designation change means area residents are more free to move about locally and more shops can open up, but a 10 p.m.—5 a.m. curfew will remain in place, residents still can’t leave their immediate area, and bars and restaurants will be limited to delivery and take-out operations only.
But alarm bells are ringing in South Korea, where 615 new cases were reported today amid what appears to be a rapidly escalating breakout. Most of the new cases are being reported in and around the capital of Seoul, and have been linked to restaurants, hospitals and long-term care facilities, the Associated Press reports. “The capital area is now a COVID-19 war zone,” South Korean Health Minister Park Neung-hoo said today.
Cases are also soaring in the West Bank, but many Palestinians are ignoring public-health measures like social distancing and mask-wearing, the New York Timesreports. That comes despite the urging of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to “take care of yourselves.” “At every moment, there’s a danger,” he said in a broadcast speech. The issue was especially apparent during a mostly maskless funeral proceeding on Saturday for a Palestinian teenager allegedly shot and killed by Israeli forces on Friday during protests over a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority says there are nearly 14,000 active cases of the virus in the area as of yesterday.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded more than 14.7 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 282,000 people have died. On Dec. 6, there were 175,663 new cases and 1,113 new deaths confirmed in the U.S. Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending:
Rudy Giuliani has been hospitalized for the coronavirus. Giuliani, 76, has been leading Trump’s legally dubious efforts to overturn the results of last month’s presidential election, which the President lost; Giuliani has often appeared at legal proceedings, hearings and other events without a mask. “I’m getting great care and feeling good,” reads a message posted on Giuliani’s Twitter account late yesterday. “Recovering quickly and keeping up with everything.”
It’s still too early to tell just how significantly the Thanksgiving holiday amplified the COVID-19 breakout here in the U.S.—but Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top pandemic expert, is already warning that the combined Christmas-New Year’s holiday period could be even worse than whatever happens as a result of November’s holiday. “I hope that people realize that and understand that as difficult as this is, nobody wants to modify—if not essentially shut down—their holiday season, but we are in a very critical time in this country right now,” Fauci said on CNN’s New Day this morning.
With a wide array of coronavirus-related federal relief programs just weeks away from expiring, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is set to unveil a new package as soon as sometime today, the Financial Timesreports. The $908 billion effort includes help for small businesses, a new phase of additional expanded unemployment benefits, and targeted assistance for certain hard-hit industries, like the airline business. It does not, however, include another round of direct stimulus checks for American families. Moreover, the package could yet be sidelined by disagreements over coronavirus-related liability protection for businesses, which Republicans want but Democrats oppose.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Dec. 7, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
A Post-Pandemic Bucket List
Many of us, including this writer, have been putting together a list of stuff we want to do when the pandemic is over—for me, it’s small stuff like seeing family, as well as big adventures, like a trip to Alaska. But as TIME Editor-at-Large Susanna Schrobsdorff writes, it’s important to try and find joy where we can now, rather than delaying it all to some unknown point in the future. Read more here.
It’s Time to Scare People About COVID-19
Unless you personally know someone who’s suffered or died from the coronavirus, it’s easy to feel a sense of remove from the horrors unfolding in hospitals across the country right now. Graphic PSAs showing what it’s like to be on a ventilator in an ICU—similar to disturbing but effective anti-smoking campaigns—could help scare people into changing their behaviors, former emergency-room physician Elisabeth Rosenthal argues in the New York Times.Read more here.
Infectious Disease Experts Are Worn Out and Frustrated
At this point in the outbreak, epidemiologists and similar experts have given us a pretty good understanding of how the virus spreads. But in the U.S. and elsewhere, many lawmakers have in part or wholly ignored those scientific findings in crafting public policy, making some experts question the hard work they’ve done over the past few months, the Boston Globe 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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