The Scientist-Moms Fighting Vaccine Misinformation
If there were a list of the 100 most influential people over the course of the pandemic, it would be made up of 99 women and Anthony Fauci.
That, at least, is what Emily Smith of Waco, Texas likes to say—and she ought to know. Smith, an epidemiologist at Baylor University, is one of those highly influential people, part of what my colleague Eliana Dockterman describes as a growing army of scientist-moms who have come together on their own to help get the truth out about COVID-19 and the vaccines that will eventually defeat it. Even as polls show a decline in trust in medical health professionals, most people do trust their moms—or even someone else’s mom—especially if they’re M.D.s, or epidemiologists like Smith.
And so there has been the rise of women with social media followings like Smith, who posts on Facebook under the name “Your Friendly Neighborhood Epidemiologist,” answering questions like “What does flatten the curve mean?” or “Is it safe for my child to kick a soccer ball outside with a friend?”
There is also Katelyn Jetelina, who operates a Facebook page called Your Local Epidemiologist (181,000 followers); the all-female team of doctors and scientists who run the page Dear Pandemic (76,000 followers); and Shikha Jain, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, who, along with five other M.D.’s, formed the Physician Mommies Chicago Facebook group, who together launched IMPACT (Illinois Medical Professionals Action Collaborative Team) in early March 2020.
“As a mom, I think there is this sense that you’re in it for more than just yourself,” says Vineet Arora, a hospitalist at the University of Chicago and the CEO of IMPACT. “You’re there to protect your kids. And as an extension, you’re there to protect your community.”
The women face pushback and often harassment from anti-vaxxers, conspiracy mongers and other Internet trolls, but unlike the people who run government websites, they have the bandwidth to engage the critics if they choose or block them if they don’t. “If you had asked me nine months ago, I would have been like, ‘Everybody’s a great person,’” says Smith. “I have learned to have strict rules on my page. If you’re going to make threats or say anything racist or say anything about white supremacy, I will ban you.”
The women don’t just connect via their own social media pages. They film video Q&As; interview one another to reach a wider audience through Instagram and YouTube; and appear on local radio and TV whenever they can. They also support one another, swapping strategies that trolls may use to drag them into arguments.
The secret, all of the women agree, is simply to be there, be honest and be reassuring. “They don’t just throw out stats and studies,” Eliana writes, “they share their own experiences.”
More than 169.2 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this morning, of which 130.5 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. Approximately 25.3% of the overall U.S. population has received at least one dose, and about 14% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
During the campaign, President Biden promised to get 100 million doses of vaccine into arms within his first 100 days in office. The Administration met that goal by day 58. Today, at his first press conference since being sworn in, Biden revised the goal to 200 million within 100 days. “ "I know it's ambitious—twice our original goal,” Biden said, “but no other country in the world has even come close, not even close to what we're doing. I believe we can do it."
In a new statement, drug maker AstraZeneca revised its efficacy ratings for its shot, declaring it 76% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19, and 100% effective against severe disease. The overall efficacy number is not significantly different from its earlier announcement of 79%, but it represents a setback nonetheless, as it comes after the National Institutes of Health’s Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB), which oversees COVID-19 vaccine trials, chided the company for using outdated data in determining its initial efficacy estimates. The new results will also be submitted to the DSMB for confirmation.
Meanwhile, as my colleague Alice Park reports, Pfizer-BioNTech has begun clinical trials of its vaccine in children under 12, beginning its Phase 1 studies with kids five to 11, then two to four, and finally six months to two years. If the vaccine proves safe in those groups, Phases 2 and, if warranted, 3 will follow. Testing the vaccine in younger children will answer critical questions about how much immunity the shots can provide, and potentially give parents and education officials more confidence in reopening schools.
While a recent survey by the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute found that 71% of CEOs were willing to consider mandating COVID-19 vaccines for their workers, CNN reports that a handful of companies are opting for the carrot rather than the stick, offering monetary incentives to employees who get the shot. Among them are Amtrak, which is offering two additional hours of pay (as well as excusing time the employees took off to get vaccinated); McDonald’s, which is offering up to four hours of pay; Target, which is not offering cash payouts, but is offering employees $15 worth of Lyft rides to and from the vaccine sites; and Krogers, which is offering $100.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
More than 124.7 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 24, there were 571,198 new cases and 9,393 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:
Iraq, with a record high daily caseload of 6,051 yesterday, just received its first shipment of AstraZeneca vaccine, through the COVAX program, the Associated Press reports . The 336,000 doses so far is a welcome relief in a country that previously had been getting by on 50,000 doses provided as a donation from China. Those shots were used to vaccinate health care workers alone.
Leaders of the European Union met today today and the top item on their agenda was the halting rollout of the bloc’s vaccine efforts, Reuters reports . While the U.K., no longer a member of the Union, has administered 46 shots for every 100 people, the E.U. as a whole has managed just 13.8 per 100. Tensions are rising between the E.U. and the U.K. after the latter imported at least 11 million doses of vaccine that were made in the E.U., leading to talk of halting exports from the 27-member community for now. “We didn’t shoot for the stars. That should be a lesson for all of us,” said French President Emmanuel Macron in an interview with Greek television. “We were wrong to lack ambition, to lack the madness, I would say, to say: It’s possible, let’s do it.”
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is hoping to make political hay out of the U.K.’s successful rollout, The New York Timesreports. Since January, when the U.K. formally left the E.U., Johnson and other Brexit supporters have taken heat over disruptions in cross-Channel trade and bureaucratic challenges that businesses were having importing and exporting goods. Now, Johnson hopes to frame the country’s vaccination program as a sign of the nimbleness and freedom of action that has been made possible by leaving the bloc.
Iceland had successfully dodged the worst of the COVID-19 bullet, with fewer than 6,000 cases and just 29 deaths, but the country today introduced new restrictions on gyms, theaters, bars and more as six cases of the U.K. variant of the virus recently surfaced in the country, the Associated Press reports. Schools will also be affected by the new restrictions. Previously, Iceland had kept classrooms open for all children under 16, but now students will continue to stay home after the schools’ spring break, now underway, ends.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded more than 30 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 545,200 people have died. On March 24, there were 85,748 new cases and 1,410 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:
As vaccination rates rise, the U.S. economy appears to be responding. The Department of Labor today announced that new jobless claims hit their lowest weekly level since the start of the pandemic, with 684,000 people filing for unemployment benefits in the week ending March 20, down from 781,000 just a week earlier. As the Wall Street Journalreports, the improvement is also partly attributable to the injection of fresh money into the economy after the passage of the Biden Administration’s $1.9 trillion stimulus bill and increased consumer spending on such non-essential businesses as gyms, hotels and salons as lockdowns are slowly eased.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today announced a federal effort to reach a particularly vulnerable population, offering COVID-19 vaccines to both patients and health care workers at kidney dialysis centers. CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky stressed in the statement that the new policy will particularly help underserved communities, with Black Americans representing 34% of dialysis patients and Hispanic Americans 19%.
Walensky may be sanguine about the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in dialysis centers, but she is less so about some of the latest trends in overall caseloads. At a White House briefing yesterday, she cited the seven-day rolling average of 55,000 cases per day, which is 3% higher than the previous seven-day period, as CNN reports. Wallensky points to the local easing of some COVID-19 restrictions as well as spring breakers flocking to Florida and other warm-weather vacation spots. “We need to hang in there just a little while longer,” she said. “If we choose to invest in prevention right now, we will ultimately come out of this pandemic faster and with fewer lives lost."
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of March 25, 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 Non-Variable Variants
A bit of good news as the world remains vigilant for more variants of Sars-CoV-2: According to Scientific American, the mutations that define the various emergent strains are generally confined to particular areas of the virus, which likely means the number of potential strains—and the dangers they pose—are relatively limited. Read more here.
And the Origin of the Virus Was...
The international team that has been in China studying the origins of SARS-CoV-2 is at last writing up its report, in collaboration with Chinese scientists, the Associated Press reports. The group is considering four possible routes of initial contamination: via a bat through an intermediary animal; straight from a bat; from contaminated frozen food products; and via a leak from a laboratory. Read more here.
What’s Behind the Mess in Europe?
A lot of fingers are being pointed in a lot of directions as Europe’s vaccine efforts continue to falter. The New York Times takes a look at the problem, pinning the blame on a confluence of causes including sclerotic bureaucracies, lack of accountability, over-reliance on the AstraZeneca vaccine and multiple other factors. Read more here.
Fibbing to Get Vaxed
Increasing numbers of people are gaming the vaccine system, outright lying—say, by claiming to be health care workers—in order to jump the vaccine line. That, as the Washington Post reports, is causing rifts in relationships among friends who disapprove of the lying. Read more here.
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Today's newsletter was written by Jeffrey Kluger and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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