Who Will Benefit from the Next Round of Stimulus Checks?
As new coronavirus cases slowly fall nationwide and the U.S. vaccine rollout ramps up, the tiniest glimmer of possibility that the pandemic will finally end is now visible. It's under these unfamiliar circumstances—hope, not just doom and gloom—that lawmakers are deciding how best to administer what may be a final round of direct economic stimulus to American families.
The latest COVID-19 relief package, called the American Rescue Plan, includes, among other provisions, another round of $1,400 checks. But the big question has been: who should get those checks?
Many Democrats want to give the most money possible to as many families as possible, while Republicans and some conservative Democrats want to limit the checks to those with lower incomes. To ensure the overall package makes it through Congress, U.S. President Joe Biden has agreed to lower the income ceiling determining who gets a check; see my colleague Emily Barone's story below for the details.
As Emily reports, lowering those income thresholds will make the overall program cheaper. But it will also mean the checks may have less of an economy-boosting effect. That's because the people who receive them may be more likely to spend the money on basic necessities, rather than outings to restaurants or other nice-to-haves.
"Targeting the most needy population isn't a bad thing," Emily says. "It makes the program more targeted and cost effective. However, those lower income people are not going to widely stimulate the economy because they need to use that money to cover bills and household essentials."
"The direct payments are widely referred to as 'stimulus checks,'" Emily adds. "But if the terms of the legislation limit the population that receives the checks, then they won't really be a far-reaching stimulus."
Moreover, those limitations will mean some families in need will almost definitely slip through the cracks. Income, Emily says, is an imperfect predictor of who needs the most financial help right now. As the pandemic continues, some families may be spending much more than they usually do on medical costs, on caretaking for children or older parents and on other expenses, even if their income has remained the same. "I'm more worried about missing a family that needs it than giving it to families who don't need it," one expert told Emily.
More than 102.4 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this morning, of which 78.6 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. Approximately 15.6% of the overall U.S. population has received at least one dose, and about 7.9% of Americans have gotten both doses.
The U.S. will have enough vaccine doses to inoculate every American adult by the end of May, President Biden said yesterday—two months earlier than expected. The sped-up timeline comes as pharmaceutical giant Merck has agreed to produce doses of rival Johnson & Johnson's vaccine, which recently received authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Biden also told governors to prioritize vaccinating teachers in an effort to more safely reopen schools across the country.
Interpol recently intercepted a shipment of about 2,400 fake COVID-19 vaccine doses headed to South Africa from China—the first confirmed instance of counterfeit shots being smuggled across continents, my colleague Simon Shuster reports. Interpol also said it has received reports about counterfeit vaccine scams targeting nursing homes and warned people against buying vaccine doses online, since no legitimate vaccine is available that way.
Rwanda received its first batch of COVID-19 vaccines through COVAX today, according to UNICEF, a COVAX delivery partner. A shipment of 240,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses arrived this morning, and an additional shipment of 102,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was expected to arrive this afternoon. More than 19,000 people in Rwanda have contracted COVID-19, and 265 have died. The country hopes to vaccinate 30% of its approximately 12.6 million-person population by the end of 2021. So far, COVAX vaccines have also reached Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya and Gambia.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
More than 114.7 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 2.5 million people have died. On March 2, there were 307,243 new cases and 10,303 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:
Brazil had its highest one-day COVID-19 death toll so far yesterday, with more than 1,700 deaths. The variant that recently ripped through Manaus, a city in northwestern Brazil, can infect people who have already gotten sick with other forms of COVID-19, the New York Times reports; coupled with a slow vaccine rollout, that has left many people vulnerable to serious infection and death. So far, more than 10.6 million people in Brazil have been infected with the virus, and more than 257,000 have died.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. recorded more than 28.7 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 516,400 people have died. On March 2, there were 53,544 new cases and 1,819 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:
Shortly after Texas announced a similar move, Mississippi governor Tate Reeves announced that all businesses in the state can completely open up, and that he was ending state mask mandates. "Our hospitalizations and case numbers have plummeted, and the vaccine is being rapidly distributed. It is time!" Reeves said on Twitter. President Biden on Wednesday slammed the states' decisions. "The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime everything's fine, take off your mask, forget it," Biden said. "It still matters."
Country superstar Dolly Parton, who helped fund the early development of the Moderna vaccine, got her first dose of that shot in Nashville yesterday. "Dolly gets a dose of her own medicine," she posted on Twitter, along with a video of her singing the praises of the inoculation. "Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine," she sang to the tune of her song, Jolene. "I'm begging of you, please don't hesitate."
New York State has launched a new pilot program to test the Excelsior Pass, a system based around a mobile QR code that businesses and venues can scan to receive confirmation of a person's vaccination status or recent negative COVID-19 test. The pass has so far been tested at Brooklyn Nets and New York Rangers games; both teams have reopened their doors to limited numbers of fans who had a negative PCR test before game time. If successful, the Excelsior Pass may help more venues in the state safely re-open, while also serving as a model for other states.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of March 3, 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
The Pandemic Didn't Save the Planet
Global CO2 emissions plummeted in the early months of the pandemic as people and economies locked down. But by the end of 2020, CO2 output rose higher than it had in December 2019, as my colleague Jeffrey Kluger reports. Read more here.
Are Intranasal Vaccines the Future?
So far, our attention has been laser-focused on coronavirus vaccines delivered via injection. But intranasal vaccines, given as a spray up the nose, could be especially helpful in stamping out the respiratory virus because of their unique delivery mode, Daniel Oran and Dr. Eric Topol explain in Scientific American. Read more here.
In Defense of Vaccine Selfies
Selfies taken by the newly vaccinated are littering social media—and that's a good thing, writes Maya Kosoff in the Washington Post. "By posting vaccine selfies, people are normalizing vaccination and good public health practices," Maya writes. Read more here.
The Pandemic Baby Bust Is Official
Until recently, it was unclear what would happen to the U.S. birth rate during a year of lockdowns—would there be a pandemic baby boom or bust? In a new piece for CBS News, reporter Kate Smith suggests the latter, as data from 29 state health departments confirm a 7.3% decline in births in December 2020, nine months after the pandemic began. 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 Mandy Oaklander and edited by Alex Fitzpatrick.
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