Nearly one year after first hunkering down for the pandemic, I did something Sunday that felt truly daring: eating dinner at my boyfriend's parent's dining room table.
We're lucky enough to live in Los Angeles, where it's been warm enough to occasionally gather outside over the past year. Once a week, we've stationed tables across the yard from each other, his parents leaving our meals on a table eight feet away from theirs. It's been a dry year, so our dinners were never rained out, but as the nights grew colder, we pulled on extra sweaters, grabbed blankets from inside and put space heaters next to the tables. One night in December, my partner's dad pitched a tent around each of the tables to keep us warm; we agreed afterwards to start meeting for lunch instead.
Although these meals were weird at first, finding a way to gather with other people has helped me stay sane during COVID-19. My immediate family lives on the other side of the U.S., and I don't know many people nearby. The four of us in California agreed we wanted to be cautious to avoid the virus, and, like many others, we've had to give up a lot of the things that make life worthwhile to stay safe.
But last week, my partner's parents passed a crucial milestone: the two-week mark after they were fulled vaccinated. Coincidentally, this was just a few days before the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was safe for vaccinated people to meet up indoors with a small number of unvaccinated people. Although my boyfriend and I aren't vaccinated yet, we knew, as my colleague Alice Park notes in her recent piece about the CDC's new guidelines, that the latest evidence suggests it's unlikely for vaccinated people to infect unvaccinated people. Other factors we took into consideration: my boyfriend and I are at low risk for severe COVID-19, and his parents have still been masking up in public and avoiding crowds even post-vaccination, as the CDC recommends. (For more on the CDC's new guidelines and what they mean for families, see my colleague Jamie Ducharme's story linked below.)
So after a quick debate on Sunday, we decided to order dim sum takeout and do something that seemed life-threatening just a few months before: having a meal together inside. I felt anxious at first; I've spent most of the past year indoors with one other person, so being together with three others felt downright crowded. However, the evening soon took on the warmth of a holiday, letting us put aside our phones, laptops and masks to enjoy each other's company face to face. It reminded me that, while I have over-the-top plans for a post COVID-19 future (I've been dreaming of getting on the first plane to Japan), even the quietest moments over the coming weeks and months will feel special. For now, I'm looking forward to gathering at many more dinner tables as more of my loved ones get vaccinated.
About 116.3 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this morning, of which nearly 92.1 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. Approximately 18.1% of the overall U.S. population has received at least one dose, and about 9.4% of Americans have gotten both doses.
Pharmaceutical companies will likely need to offer a booster shot this fall to avoid another winter surge, Anthony Harnden, deputy chair of the United Kingdom's vaccine advisory committee and a University of Oxford primary care professor, told medical journal BMJ in an interview published today. Harnden said that a booster may be needed either for vulnerable groups or the entire population if immunity levels slide and new variants continue to circulate. "I think we're likely to make a bold decision to recommend a booster dose, even if we haven't got all the evidence of the necessity, just because I think the consequences of not immunizing with the booster dose are so big," he said.
Russia's Sputnik V vaccine will be produced in Italy after the Russian Direct Investment Fund reached a deal with Adienne Srl, a subsidiary of a Swiss pharmaceutical company, the Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce announced today, the Associated Press reports. While Russia developed the vaccine, it doesn't have enough manufacturing capacity to produce it at the necessary scale, so the country has reached deals to produce it abroad, the Financial Times reports. The Sputnik vaccine hasn’t yet been approved for use in the European Union, but the deal will allow it to be produced in the E.U. for the first time, for use in more than 20 countries where vaccination using the Russian-developed shot is slated to begin or has already started.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
More than 117.1 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 8, there were 298,298 new cases and 6,839 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:
One year after then-Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced a national lockdown to stop the spread of the coronavirus, Italy yesterday surpassed a tragic milestone, reporting 100,000 total deaths from COVID-19, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Italy, which was hit hard early in the global outbreak, is once again facing a surge of the virus, with nearly 14,000 cases and over 300 deaths over the last day. In part, the new wave is being fueled by a highly contagious variant first found in the U.K., per the AP.
The pandemic has weakened democracy in Europe not only in countries already led by authoritarians, but also in "traditionally strong democracies," human rights group Civil Liberties Union for Europe said in a report assessing 14 E.U. countries published today. Poland, Hungary and Slovenia are "systematically weakening the judiciary, the media and civil society" to avoid accountability to the law or their citizens, the group says, while other countries, including Ireland, Germany and Sweden, relied on "fast track" lawmaking that to pass legislation to address the virus without first consulting the public or civil society organizations. "Some measures may be necessary to protect people's health," the authors write. "But our report shows that several governments have placed disproportionate restrictions on civic space, media freedom and democratic participation."
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. recorded more than 29 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. Nearly 526,000 people have died. On March 8, there were 44,758 new cases and 719 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:
The U.S. House of Representatives is taking a little longer than expected to approve the latest COVID-19 relief bill, a massive $1.9 trillion package that will likely be passed there sometime tomorrow morning, CNN reports. The bill, meant to help American families, small businesses and state and local governments, includes $1,400 stimulus checks for most U.S. households, a $300 weekly supplement for unemployment checks, and an expanded child tax credit. Once the bill passes the House, it will go straight to President Joe Biden for his signature.
The stimulus bill is likely one reason President Biden's approach to the pandemic has been popular so far, with 70% of Americans (including 44% of Republicans) saying they approve of his response to the virus, according to a new poll conducted between Feb. 25 and March 1 by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. However, Americans are less optimistic about the economy, with 55% of those polled saying they approve of the President's approach to the economy, and 63% saying the economy is in poor shape.
The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, which is already building a historical record of the pandemic, has a new addition to its collection: an empty vial that held the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine administered in the U.S., the museum announced today. Northwell Health, a New York health provider, donated the Pfizer-BioNTech vial along with scrubs, a vaccination card and an ID badge belonging to Sandra Lindsay, the intensive care nurse who received the first shot.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of March 9, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
Enjoy in-depth analysis and editorial insight direct to your inbox from The Economist's science correspondent. Simply Science provides you the latest thinking on the most pressing scientific matters. Sign up for free now
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Some Parents Want Unvaccinated Surrogates
Despite the fact that pregnancy increases the risk of severe COVID-19 and preterm birth, many prospective parents in the U.S. are looking for surrogates who will forego the vaccine, VICE reports. Neither Moderna nor Pfizer-BioNTech knowingly included pregnant women in initial vaccine trials, so the safety of the shots remains unclear; that said, no serious complications have been reported among the people who became pregnant during those studies. Read more here.
The Painful Truth of COVID-19's Impact on Workers
TV shows depicting the pandemic have trended towards the sugary and the uplifting, but HBO's new documentary COVID Diaries NYC depicts the reality of the pandemic's impact on poor and working class people, writes TIME's Judy Berman. Read more here.
Vaccinated, And Feeling Guilty
Getting a coronavirus vaccine can be exciting, but some recipients are also feeling a twinge of guilt that they may have gone ahead of someone who's at greater risk of severe disease, writes Cooper Lund on Medium. 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.
If you were forwarded this and want to sign up to receive it daily, click here.
Today's newsletter was written by Tara Law and edited by Alex Fitzpatrick.
沒有留言:
張貼留言