Case Counts Fall in U.S., But it May Be Too Early to Credit Vaccines
It would have been hard to imagine a year ago that we’d be applauding the news that 94,704 Americans contracted a potentially deadly virus just yesterday. But in the time of pandemic, that’s good news indeed—the fourth day in a row that new COVID-19 cases were below 100,000 in the U.S., after daily numbers cracked 300,000 just last month.
What’s more, hospitalization rates are lower too, with about 77,000 Americans hospitalized in the U.S. on Feb. 10, compared to a daily average of 130,000 during parts of January. Better still, average daily deaths in the U.S. have fallen from 3,362 on Jan. 10 to 2,350 on Feb. 10, a reduction of 30%.
It’s hard to find anything not to like in those trends—but, as my colleagues Alice Park and Jamie Ducharme report, it’s hard to explain just what’s behind them either. The obvious place to look is vaccines. The shots are being rolled out, fewer people are getting sick. QED. But it’s not that easy.
For one thing, only about 10% of Americans have received even one shot of a vaccine, which is not remotely close to the 70% that would be needed to achieve herd immunity. “We’re nowhere near where you need to be for herd immunity, even with the combination of vaccination and the number of people who had the disease,” Dr. Mark Roberts, director of the Public Health Dynamics lab at the University of Pittsburgh, told Jamie. Each vaccination helps, but it may take months for immunizations to have a dramatic effect on case counts.
Meanwhile, faster-spreading variants of the virus are popping up all over the world, and it remains unclear whether or not vaccination prevents the spread of the virus. (What we do know is that the vaccines are highly effective at preventing COVID-19 disease.) There is some good news on that front, though it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. As Alice explains, one recent study of the AstraZeneca vaccine found 50% fewer positive tests in people who had been vaccinated than in those who hadn’t been, which shows that vaccinated people who get infected might harbor less virus. Another study, in Israel, showed that vaccines lowered the viral load by anywhere from 1.5 to 20 times in people who were fully inoculated. But while those studies are encouraging, neither measured whether or not the subjects were less likely to transmit the disease. It takes only one virus, after all, to spread or contract COVID-19.
The least encouraging explanation for the improving infection and hospitalization rates is simply that the country is returning to its pre-holiday transmission levels, with all of the new cases caused by New Year’s and Christmas gatherings now having passed through the nation’s system. Super Bowl gatherings could lead to another, albeit smaller spike in the coming weeks. Certainly, nobody is dismissing the good news in the new numbers, but it’s way too early to do a touchdown dance either.
43.4 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this morning, while about 33.4 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker—representing 10.2% of the overall U.S. population who have received at least one dose.
Vaccine hesitancy is giving way to vaccine popularity, as a new Gallup poll reports that 71% of Americans now say they were willing to get the shot, up from 65% in December. But if the American public is feeling increasingly positive about getting vaccinated, we’re a lot less happy with the national effort to distribute the vaccines, with two-thirds saying they are dissatisfied with the distribution effort.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says good times are coming in April. By then reports the Associated Press, he says it will be “open season” on vaccines, with anyone who wants a shot eligible to get one. He concedes there could be “logistical hurdles” to meeting that goal, with unforeseen delivery and administration obstacles. Still, Fauci now predicts that much sought-after herd immunity could be achieved as early as late summer.
The AstraZeneca vaccine today got a vote of confidence on the African continent, reports the Associated Press, as the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today encouraged countries without the circulating South African variant to continue using the shots. Also today, the World Health Organization recommended the AstraZeneca formulation (still unapproved in the U.S.) even for countries even with the South African strain. The moves came after South Africa said it would not use the shot, citing a small study showing it was ineffective against the local strain. Only seven countries on the continent have the South African variant so far.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
About 107.3 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 2.3 million people have died. On Feb. 10, there were 435,081 new cases and 13,457 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:
There may be no more effective means of soft power than a vaccine. As Al Jazeera reports , COVID-19 vaccines from both Russia and China are becoming increasingly popular throughout the Middle East, with political alliances increasingly irrelevant in the importation decisions. U.S. allies Qatar, Kuwait and Oman have purchased Russian and Chinese shots, as well as well as nations with which the U.S. has a more fraught relationship, like Turkey and Iran. In publicity moves, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai, and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have posed for and posted pictures of themselves being injected with the Chinese vaccine.
The emerging strains of SARS-CoV-2 are not just making it hard for countries to stay ahead of infections, they’re also bollixing up plans for global economic recovery, reports CNN. Key to a rebound is the easing of quarantines and other restrictions and no sooner do national leaders make plans to lift limitations than a new strain squelches them. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for example, today extended lockdown rules—which had been set to be lifted imminently—until March 7. The European Commission meanwhile downgraded its forecast for 2021 economic growth in the 19 countries that use the euro from 4.2% to 3.8%
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. recorded more than 27.2 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 471,000 people have died. On Feb. 10, there were 94,704 new cases and 3,364 new deaths confirmed in the U.S.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday updated its quarantine guidelines for people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Those who have received both injections of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech shots and have waited two weeks since the second one need no longer quarantine if they are exposed to someone with COVID-19. One catch: Since it’s impossible to know yet how long immunity from the shots last, the waiver is good only for three months after the second shot. Once that period expires, it’s back into quarantine for the exposed.
It’s bad enough to peddle anti-vaccine misinformation during ordinary times, but during a pandemic it’s another matter entirely. That’s the conclusion Instagram apparently reached, reports The New York Times, disabling the account of noted anti-vax fabulist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The move, made yesterday, leaves his 800,000 followers searching elsewhere for fanciful and misleading claims about the coronavirus vaccines—including Kennedy’s stated belief that it’s safer to get the disease than take the shot. “We removed this account for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines,” said Facebook, the owner of Instagram, in a statement.
In a memo obtained by my colleague Simon Schuster, an aide to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has warned hospitals in the state that they may not begin to vaccinate high-risk people like those in the 65-and-over cohort until they have finished vaccinating hospital staffers. Cuomo has been frustrated by vaccine hesitancy among health workers, with some hospitals vaccinating only 45% to 50% of their staff. In a televised briefing, Cuomo conceded that hospitals cannot force employees to be vaccinated, but the new policy does seek to apply pressure by reducing the supply of vaccines sent to non-compliant hospitals and using other sites to vaccinate high-priority groups in the community.
According to a new study in the journal Lancet, up to 40% of America’s coronavirus deaths could have been avoided if better policy and political decisions had been made both before and during the pandemic. The paper, titled “Public Policy and Health in the Trump Era,” points the finger director at the former president’s “inept and inefficient” management of the pandemic, but also blames systemic failures in the U.S. health care system
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Feb. 11, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Masks All Boxed Up With Nowhere to Go
As the country continues to face shortages in N-95 masks, there’s a small company in Miami named DemeTech that has manufactured 30 million of them—and yet can’t seem to sell them into a market in which demand is high and supply is low, reports the New York Times. DemeTech is not alone: nearly two dozen other companies are in the same boat. Read more here.
Zero-Sum Vaccines
The goal is to get vaccines distributed worldwide. The reality is that, as with so many things, it’s the rich countries that are getting the shots and the poor ones that are left wanting, The Washington Post reports. Read more here.
Death Is a Numbers Game
Bad as the 471,000 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are, it’s widely agreed that the figure is a lowball count. The Daily Beast analyzes all of the reasons many COVID deaths are slipping through the cracks. Read more here.
Swing Low, Alabama
It’s a race to the bottom for some states when it comes to vaccine distribution and Alabama is leading that unfortunate contest, with the lowest rate of vaccinations and among the highest rate of positive tests—29.1%—in the country, reports The Wall Street Journal. Arian-Campo Flores analyzes the reasons Alabama stands as a case study in getting things wrong, including outdated software and years of poor funding of the state’s health care system. Read more here.
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Today's newsletter was written by Jeffrey Kluger and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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