It took Congress months of bitter negotiations to pass its recent $900 billion coronavirus relief package. Only weeks later, President-elect Joe Biden is proposing an even more ambitious plan.
The $1.9 trillion package, which Biden is calling the "American Rescue Plan," would unlock billions of dollars in pandemic aid, as well as funds that would go directly toward vaccine distribution, COVID-19 testing and an expansion of the public-health workforce. It would also include checks of up to $1,400 for most Americans, unemployment and paid leave benefits, eviction protections, tax credits for families with children and even an increase in the federal minimum wage, bumping it to $15 an hour.
"I know what I just described does not come cheaply, but we simply can’t afford not to do what I’m proposing," Biden said when announcing the proposal yesterday.
Biden pitched the plan as necessary for both economic and pandemic recovery. A number of earmarks included in the package—such as $20 billion for things like mass and mobile vaccination sites, and $130 billion in funding for schools—would support Biden’s previously stated goals of administering 100 million vaccine doses during his first 100 days in office and opening most U.S. schools by springtime.
It’s not guaranteed, however, that Biden could get such a plan passed during the first 100 days of his term—though with Democrats set to control both the House and the Senate (albeit by slim majorities), he certainly stands a better chance than he otherwise might have. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer both praised the package, but its more ambitious goals, like raising the federal minimum wage, may still become political sticking points.
While 24.1 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this morning, only about 10.5 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker—representing 3.2% of the overall U.S. population.
Each state gets to make its own decisions about who can vaccinated, and when—and that's leading to mass confusion in the U.S., the New York Timesreports. At least 28 states have begun vaccinating older adults, and at least 32 are accepting non-medical essential workers in vaccine clinics. That's created a complex system where, for example, a 66-year-old in Illinois could get vaccinated—assuming she could secure an appointment, which is not guaranteed—but her peers over the border in Iowa can’t.
Former FDA Commissioner Dr. David Kessler will replace Moncef Slaoui at the helm of the federal government’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine program, the Times also reports. Kessler, one of President-elect Joe Biden's most trusted pandemic advisers, will try to steady the U.S.' rocky vaccine rollout and get more Americans vaccinated in the coming months.
Israel has been widely praised for its COVID-19 vaccination program. Already, it has vaccinated more than 2 million of its 9 million residents. But as TIME's Joseph Hincks reports, the 4.5 million Palestinians living under Israeli control in the West Bank and Gaza have not been included in those efforts, drawing criticism and calls for a change in strategy.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
More than 93.4 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 p.m. E.T. today, and—as cases and hospitalizations continue to skyrocket in countries around the world—more than 2 million people have died. On Jan. 14, there were 733,459 new cases and 14,962 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 1.5 million confirmed cases:
COVID-19 vaccines have so far proved incredibly effective at preventing people from getting sick with the disease—but it hasn’t been clear whether they actually block infection, a crucial element of slowing viral spread. Now, encouraging but preliminary findings out of Israel suggest the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine does reduce infection rates. Israeli researchers compared a group of 200,000 older adults who had been vaccinated against a group of 200,000 older adults who had not. Beginning at two weeks after administration of the first dose, those who had been vaccinated tested positive for the virus about 33% less frequently than those who hadn't, they found.
The U.K. will keep out many travelers from South and Central America, citing the risks of a new COVID-19 variant spreading in Brazil and other countries in the region. The Brazilian variant, discovered earlier this month, is feared to be more contagious than earlier strains of the virus. The U.K.'s travel ban comes as its health system is being devastated by a different viral variant, which originated there and has begun to spread around the world.
Starting tomorrow, the entire nation of France will be under a 6 p.m. curfew, as the country fights to end a COVID-19 surge that began in December. Furthermore, travelers from outside the European Union who wish to enter France must first show proof of a negative test result.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded more than 23.3 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 388,000 people have died. On Jan. 14, there were 229,386 new cases and 3,769 new deaths confirmed in the U.S.
Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending:
And here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents.
Earlier this week, the Trump Administration announced what sounded like a big policy change: Instead of holding back some vaccine supply as second doses, it would release everything available to pick up the pace of vaccinations. But, according to Washington Postreporting, there was never a stockpile of extra doses to start giving out—the federal government has been shipping vaccines straight from the assembly line since last month. While the government maintains production has scaled up such that there is not a significant risk of people being unable to get their second shots, the news is a blow to states that expected an influx of new supplies to meet high demand for immunizations.
In New York City, shortages have become dire enough that some hospitals have had to cancel vaccine appointments because they didn’t have enough doses on hand. And with vaccines hard to come by, some residents are getting desperate. Yesterday, the spread of a (false) rumor that a refrigerator holding vaccines in Brooklyn was malfunctioning prompted many people to show up at the site, hoping to get one of the doses before they spoiled.
As many as a third of Los Angeles County residents have been infected with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to estimates cited in a new Los Angeles Timesstory. It's important to note that figure is an estimate based on mathematical modeling, not the results of antibody testing. But it highlights the extent to which Los Angeles has been one of the U.S.' hardest-hit areas throughout the pandemic, and especially in recent months, with ICUs sometimes running out of beds to hold the flood of patients arriving at hospitals.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Jan. 15, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Random People Are Lining Up for COVID-19 Shots...
For those in the know, grocery store pharmacies are the newest hotspots in Washington, D.C. In certain stores, The Atlantic reports, people—including those not yet eligible for COVID-19 shots—are lining up for hours in hopes of snagging leftover doses at the end of the day. Read more here.
...But Maybe That's Not the Worst?
Over at Boston magazine, writer Spencer Buell argues that, while ideally everyone would follow vaccine priority guidelines, there may be worse things than a few people cutting the line. It’s certainly better, he writes, than letting extra doses end up in the trash. Read more here.
COVID-Era Rom Coms Are Here
It was only a matter of time. TIME's Stephanie Zacharek reviews Locked Down, one of the first movies to mine COVID-19 quarantines for rom-com material. 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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