For most of 2020, a big part of my job as a health reporter was to convey bad news about the pandemic. I’ve got to warn you, that with a record number of daily deaths in the U.S. set yesterday, there’s still a lot of that bad news ahead. Today, however, I’m excited to announce that TIME has launched a page that can be your guide to good news in the coming months: a hub where you can track how many people across the country are getting vaccinated.
Then again, already our tracker is showing some discomforting figures: Only about 22% of the 20 million vaccines that have shipped in the U.S. have actually been given to people. Of course, that still means many more Americans are that much safer from COVID-19 than they were a month ago. While I wish I could have gotten the vaccine myself, I’m grateful that a number of doctors and nurses I interviewed over the last year have already gotten vaccinated. My dad, who has been treating COVID-19 patients since March, was among the frontline healthcare workers to get his first shot; knowing he’d be safer as daily cases keep rising in New Jersey (where he works) was a big relief for my family over the holidays.
The vaccine rollout has been complicated—as has been getting data about the rollout. My colleague Chris Wilson, who spearheaded the effort to collect and visualize all the sources of data on vaccination, says that the project made him feel a sense of “awe for how immense and improbable this rollout has been from the very beginning.”
“The challenges in bringing all of this information together was a microcosm of the greater challenge of the vaccine rollout: Because the authority is split between the federal government and the states, the information is not conveniently all in one place,” Chris says.
For those of us still waiting to get our initial shot, TIME’s vaccine hub also includes key information on each of the authorized vaccines and an FAQ that should help answer almost all your vaccination queries. If you’re like me, you’ve got a lot of questions about how the vaccine rollout will work, and I think revisiting this page as we update it in the coming weeks will be really helpful to guide us all through the coming months of the vaccination rollout.
In a lot of ways, the world looks really dire right now. As cases of COVID-19 soar in Los Angeles county, where I live, I’ve mostly been staying at home, which can be dispiriting at times. However, seeing the number of vaccinations rise is a reminder that we may only need to hold out a little longer.
Countries in sub-Saharan Africa are currently preparing to distribute the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. Kenyan health minister Mutahi Kagwe said yesterday that the country will begin to receive a planned 24 million doses starting next month through the COVAX program, which aims to provide vaccines to lower-income countries. South Africa’s health minister, Zwelini Mkhize, also announced plans today to import 1.5 million doses of the vaccine for health care workers in the country, per AP.
In the U.K., health minister Matt Hancock said today the government is coordinating with both AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech, the maker of another proven shot, to add to Britain’s vaccine supplies, according to Reuters.
A vaccine developed by the Chinese company Sinovac had an efficacy rate of 78%, say Brazilian officials in São Paulo, where a large late-stage study of the shot has been ongoing, according to the New York Times. The company has already pre-sold 300 million doses, the majority to lower- and middle-income countries, and many doses have already been shipped around the world.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
Nearly 87.2 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 1.88 million people have died. On Jan. 6, there were 780,613 new cases and 14,993 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:
Japan declared a limited state of emergency in Tokyo and three adjacent prefectures yesterday to slow a recent rise of COVID-19 cases, according to Reuters . Reported cases of the virus have climbed about 80% in Japan in the last two weeks alone. The new regulations are less strict than the ones the country put in place this past spring, when most non-essential businesses were closed. This time around, residents will be asked to skip outings that aren’t urgent; companies are asked to encourage employees to work from home; and restaurants and bars must close by 8 p.m. While medical experts have said that the measures won’t be enough to stem the rising tide of cases, critics have raised concerns about the measures’ impact on the economy.
Lebanon also started a 25-day lockdown today in response to rising COVID-19 cases. Most businesses will be forced to close down entirely, and there will be a curfew imposed from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m., the AP reports. The country will also limit the number of flights at its sole international airport, and impose alternate-day driving restrictions—owners of cars with odd-numbered license plate numbers will be allowed to drive on one day, and only those with even-numbered cars will be allowed to drive on the next day. Lebanon reported 4,166 cases yesterday, a single-day high.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded more than 21 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 361,000 people have died. On Jan. 6, there were 253,145 new cases and 3,865 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:
As eyes turned to the chaos in the Capitol yesterday, the U.S. quietly reached another grim COVID-19 milestone: 3,865 U.S. residents died from the disease, the highest single-day death toll, breaking the record set just the day before. More Americans have died from COVID-19 in the last month than at any point in the pandemic: the top 10 days with the most deaths from the disease have all occurred since Dec. 11.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Jan. 7, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
The COVID-19 Virus Is Mutating. What Does That Mean for Vaccines?
Virus mutations mean that an efficient rollout of the currently authorized vaccines is more important than ever, reports my colleague Alice Park. That has led some experts to argue for new strategies to get as many people vaccinated as possible. Read more here.
A $70 Million Deal For Ventilators is Ill-Suited to COVID-19 Patients
Amid a push for ventilators this spring, the U.S. gave a private company in Texas $70 million to buy machines it manufactures—despite the fact that the ventilators were designed for injured soldiers, and declared unfit for COVID-19 patients, the Washington Post reports. Read more here.
Good Signs About Antibody Treatments
Treating patients with monoclonal antibodies takes time, which is challenging for health care workers during a pandemic and complicated by the fact that they seem to be more effective when delivered early. However, it may still be a useful treatment: two major health systems have reported encouraging signs that the treatment can help patients, NPR reports. Read more here.
New Hampshire’s Drive-In Legislature
New Hampshire’s Republican-led House has resisted calls to hold its meetings remotely, but yesterday, it tried out an innovative way of meeting: 357 state representatives convened in their cars, the New York Times 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 Tara Law and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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