A year can age you by more than 12 months. You can age in grief years, in sorrow years, in stress and solitude and tedium years. By those measures we’ve all gotten a great deal older in the time since, one year ago today, the World Health Organization (WHO) first declared COVID-19 a pandemic.
The numbers are both well-known and incomprehensible—the 118 million people around the world who have been infected; the 2.6 million deaths; the 29 million cases in the U.S. and the 529,000 lives lost. There are, however, other numbers: The three vaccines now approved for use in the U.S.; the 63 million Americans who have been vaccinated with at least one dose so far; the single, scant year it took to develop and roll them out. There are also the millions of people who contracted the disease and through luck or fortitude or fortune, lived to tell their story.
Along the way, we've had to fight divisive politics: U.S. Republicans and Democrats have regularly split on their belief in the severity—and even the authenticity—of the coronavirus threat; Texas and Mississippi, red states both, have lifted their mask mandates in the past few days, even as other states continue to crack down. We have experienced a head-snapping change in optics as a president who virtually never wore a mask—even after contracting COVID-19 himself—is replaced by one who almost always does, and slammed the lifting of mask mandates as “Neanderthal thinking.”
And yet we’ve pulled together too. There were the front-line workers putting in day-long shifts as hospitals and ICUs were overwhelmed. The teachers reinventing their jobs on the fly, instructing their students over screens instead of in classrooms. The students themselves—and their parents—who have adapted to the new, unwelcome normal. The community leaders who innovated so they could keep helping their neighbors, like Father Matthew Fish, of Holy Family Catholic Church in Hillcrest, Md., who used duct tape and an old curtain to set up a confessional in the driveway near his rectory so that his flock could relieve themselves at least of their spiritual burdens at a time there were so many others that needed to be taken on.
This has been a year nobody foresaw and everybody would devoutly have wished not to have experienced. But the suffering will eventually end; the sickness and the dying will eventually end. The grief born of loss will linger—but that pain too will eventually become bearable. What will be left—what will be gained—will be the fact that we endured, we pressed ahead, we fought as one and, eventually, will have come through as one. Pandemics may be the very worst of what nature can inflict on us, but they have a way of bringing out the very best of us.
VACCINE TRACKER
About 127.8 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this morning, of which 95.7 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. Approximately 18.9% of the overall U.S. population has received at least one dose, and about 9.9% of Americans have gotten both doses.
Austria is mounting a mini-Operation Warp Speed in the Tyrolean province of Schwaz, where residents are battling a severe outbreak of the South African variant of the virus, reports the Associated Press. In the town of 84,000 residents, 64,000—all residents 16 years old and up—are eligible to receive the vaccine, and the government is racing to have the first doses administered by Monday. Schwaz has so far received a tranche of 100,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine from the European Union, and one of the goals of the vaccine drive is to determine how effective the shot is against the variant that has struck the district.
At least eight countries—Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway and Iceland—have suspended use of the AstraZeneca vaccine following scattered reports of blood clots in some people who received the shots, report France 24 and others . The number of incidents so far are small—22 cases out of three million shots administered as of March 9—but in one case in Austria, a 49-year-old woman died of clots several days after receiving the shots. Cause and effect between the vaccine and the clots has not yet been established, and the European Medicines Agency—the E.U.’s chief medical watchdog and regulator—has said that there is no “specific issue” it has found with the batch of vaccines from which the one linked to the death was taken.
Europe today approved the Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine after getting the thumbs-up from the European Medicines Agency, adding to the three-vaccine arsenal already in use on the continent. Three more vaccines—the Novavax, CureVac and Sputnik V shots—are also under review. The green light for the J&J shot is a welcome sign in Europe, where the vaccine rollout has been slow, with only 7% of the population having received at least an initial shot so far. The J&J vaccine should provide a considerable boost in the continent’s vaccine arsenal, with, as the New York Times reports, 200 million doses already on order, with an option for 200 million more under contract.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
More than 118 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 2.6 million people have died. On March 10, there were 473,138 new cases and 9,612 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 2 million confirmed cases:
Europe is facing a grim spring, as my colleague Madeline Roache reports . Countries across the continent, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Slovakia, Italy, France, Poland and Sweden, have seen significant rises in average new daily cases in the recent weeks.
Overall, the European Union has recorded over 800,000 new coronavirus cases over the past seven days, an increase of about 5.8% from the seven days prior. The key causes: the slow and often fumbled rollout of new vaccines and the spread of the highly contagious U.K. variant.
On the other side of the planet, Brazil is in a deep crisis. On Wednesday the country recorded 79,876 new cases, the country’s third highest daily total, and broke 2,000 deaths in a day for the first time. Hospitals and intensive care units are reeling under the weight of new cases, reports the BBC, with ICUs at more than 80% capacity across the country. The surge is being driven in part by the emergence of new, more infectious viral strains.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. recorded more than 29.1 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 529,000 people have died. On March 10, there were 57,667 new cases and 1,494 new deaths confirmed in the U.S.
Here's how the country 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:
Earlier today, President Joe Biden signed a long-awaited $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, which will provide $1,400 stimulus checks to households earning $75,000 or less, extend $300 enhanced unemployment benefits through September, and more. At 8:00 p.m. E.T. tonight, Biden will address the nation, both to mark the one-year anniversary of the day the WHO declared a pandemic, and to preview a return to normalcy as vaccines continue to roll out and as money from the rescue bill begins to flow into the economy. The speech marks another one-year anniversary—of a similar national address by former President Donald Trump, who declared at the time that the risk from the pandemic was “very, very low.”
The Department of Health and Human Services yesterday released updated guidelines for nursing home visits during the pandemic. Citing the decline in nursing home cases of COVID-19 and the widespread vaccination of both residents and staff, the HHS now recommends allowing indoor visits in most cases, regardless of whether the visitor or residents themselves have been vaccinated—though outdoor visits are still preferable. The guidelines do come with caveats. Notably, indoor visitation should not be allowed if there are any residents currently infected, or under quarantine for potential exposure. Further, indoor visitation is not recommended if the nursing home has a vaccination rate lower than 70% and is located in a county where the COVID-19 positivity rate is higher than 10%.
In a searing reminder of the toll of the pandemic, survey results published today by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that nearly one in five Americans report having lost a relative or close friend due to the pandemic. Black Americans have been hit harder, at 30%, followed by Hispanic Americans at 29% and whites Americans at 15%. Income plays a role too, with 24% of households earning under $30,000 reporting having lost a friend or relative compared to 17% of those in the over-$30,000 group.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of March 11, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
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WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
A Word From Your Ex-Presidents
Four of the five living ex-presidents are appearing in television ads this week to urge Americans to get their COVID-19 vaccines. The only one of the five who is not participating is former President Donald Trump. Read (and see) more here.
Vaccinated? Who, Me?
For all of the social media posts of celebrities (and non-celebrities) showing off their vaccination cards, there are plenty of other people who are keeping their shots a secret, reports the Atlantic. Their reasons vary, running from fear of being accused of line-hopping to worries about being called back to work too soon. Read more here.
China’s "Immunity Gap"
Beijing’s success at controlling the pandemic even before vaccines became available has reduced the public’s incentive to get the shots now, according to Al Jazeera. The Chinese government’s goal is to vaccinate 40% of the country by the end of July and to achieve herd immunity nationwide in time for the 2022 Beijing Olympics, but as of today, just 4% of China’s 1.4 billion people have gotten their shots. 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 Jeffrey Kluger and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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