Israel Is the World's Vaccination Leader—But it's Slowing Down
For the past few months, the world has watched in awe as Israel, a country of roughly 9 million people, has vaccinated residents at breakneck speed. Nearly 60% of its population has received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, and coronavirus death rates in the country have plummeted.
But the fast pace that made Israel the world leader in per-capita vaccinations is now slowing down, my colleague Tara Law reports. At the beginning of its rollout in January, Israel was administering initial doses to about 1.5% of its population every day, but that rate has since fallen to 0.2%. Israel can't afford to stagnate now: At least 70% of any given country must be fully vaccinated to stem the pandemic, public health experts estimate.
Israel's slowdown is rooted in two main issues: vaccine hesitancy (especially among Arab-Israelis and some religious groups) and access. Distrust of the government is high in Israel, which makes people less likely to heed leaders' advice to get the shot, one Israeli nonprofit leader told Tara. Disinformation on social networks also fuels misconceptions about the vaccine.
To overcome these hurdles, Israeli public health officials are handing the mic to trusted figures in under-vaccinated communities. "If there's a problem with trust in institutions, it's essential that people are encouraged to vaccinate by leaders who they actually can rely on," Tara says. They're also opening inoculation sites in Arab-majority areas and adding mobile vaccination buses around the country.
Hesitancy and access have been issues in Israel—and every other country where vaccination has begun—since the early days of the rollout. But they're becoming especially urgent problems to solve as vaccine supply overwhelms demand. Most places, including the U.S., are still having the opposite problem; only about 25% of American adults have received at least one shot and eligibility remains limited in most places. Still, the U.S. and other countries will eventually face the same late-stage obstacles Israel is currently encountering, meaning they could learn from the country's efforts to overcome them.
"I think those lessons carry over to the U.S.," Tara says of Israel's approach to improving vaccination rates. "Any community that is vaccine hesitant needs to be approached with respect, and with a recognition of the injustices that might be at the root of mistrust or a lack of vaccine access."
More than 164.3 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this morning, of which 128.2 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. Approximately 24.9% of the overall U.S. population has received at least one dose, and about 13.7% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
New research published in the New England Journal of Medicine yesterday has encouraging findings about whether fully vaccinated people can still spread COVID-19. In the study, health care workers at two large California health systems who had been fully vaccinated with either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines were tested regularly for the virus, in order to watch for any infections, asymptomatic or otherwise. Of the more than 4,000 workers tested 15 days or more after receiving their second dose, only seven tested positive—suggesting that even asymptomatic spread among vaccinated populations is relatively rare.
In the latest controversy surrounding the AstraZeneca vaccine, 29 million doses of the shot were found stashed away in an Italian factory, and Italian authorities suspect that the pharma company was trying to export them to another country, the New York Times reports. The European Union has grown frustrated with the vaccine manufacturer—it was supposed to get more than 100 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the first quarter of 2021, but so far it has received only 16.6 million. Meanwhile, the U.K. has received its AstraZeneca shipments on time. EU leaders announced today that the bloc will soon impose stricter export restrictions to stop drugmakers from sending doses abroad.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
More than 124.2 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 2.7 million people have died. On March 23, there were 524,075 new cases and 11,123 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:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel today backed down from her plan to close stores for two extra days near Easter (Apr. 4), the New York Times reports. The plan, which was announced yesterday, was deeply unpopular among German citizens and politicians, who are tired of lockdowns and angry about their effects on the economy. Merkel proposed the shutdown to slow the B117 variant, which is spreading rapidly through Germany. The country reported nearly 93,000 new cases in the last week, while only 4.1% of German adults are fully vaccinated.
Iraq reported 6,051 new coronavirus cases today, its highest number since the pandemic began, CNN reports. Even as cases surge, the Iraqi government last week eased lockdown restrictions for economic reasons. Restrictions are now only in effect Fridays and Saturdays (instead of Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays); the daily curfew is one hour shorter; and malls, shops and restaurants are now open. Iraq has reported more than 800,000 cases so far, and more than 14,000 deaths.
According to a new preprint study by researchers at the University of Leicester and other U.K. universities, seven in 10 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in the U.K. have still not fully recovered five months after leaving the hospital. The research, which was published on medRxiv and has not yet been peer-reviewed, analyzed data from 1,077 patients who were discharged in 2020 and reevaluated about five months after hospitalization. At follow-up, only 29% said they felt fully recovered, 20% reported having a new disability, and 19% said they changed their job because of their illness.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded more than 29.9 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. Nearly 544,000 people have died. On March 23, there were 52,878 new cases and 894 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:
A year of stress, comfort foods and closed gyms has proven to be bad for waistlines: research published this week in JAMA finds that Americans gained an average of about seven pounds between February and June of 2020, my colleague Jeffrey Kluger reports, suggesting deteriorating dietary habits and increasingly sedentary lifestyles. Because the study participants were generally health-conscious volunteers, the researchers suspect that the average American may have experienced even more weight gain.
Certain brands of hand sanitizers have been found to contain high levels of the carcinogen benzene, which is linked to blood cancers, Bloomberg reports. A pharmacy in New Haven, Conn. made the discovery after testing hand sanitizers from 168 brands; 17% contained benzene, and 8% contained it at levels exceeding the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's limit. Mainstays like Purell and Suave didn't contain unsafe benzene levels—the problem is more common among new brands introduced amid the pandemic.
The vast majority of COVID-19 coverage from major U.S. news sources (87%) was negative in tone—even when the news actually showed a positive trend, according to a new analysis by a Dartmouth College economics professor. For instance, positive research findings about school re-openings were still mostly reported in a poor light. This negative bent was obvious whether organizations tended to have liberal or conservative audiences. International outlets weren't as negative as American publications, the research showed, possibly because American news companies are more reliant on advertising revenue driven by audience metrics.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of March 24, 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
Even 'Mild' COVID-19 Can Derail Lives
Long-term neurological symptoms—like brain fog, dizziness and headaches—are popping up in people who had COVID-19 but were never sick enough to require hospitalization, Pam Belluck writes for the New York Times. And the patients are often surprisingly young. Read more here.
Is Your State's Vaccine Site Secure?
In an analysis of every U.S. state's COVID-19 vaccine appointment website, technology news site The Markup found an alarming number of red flags regarding privacy, performance and accessibility. Read more here.
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Today's newsletter was written by Mandy Oaklander and edited by Alex Fitzpatrick.
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