COVID-19 Has Made It Impossible To Deny The Ways Broken Systems Hurt Women
COVID-19 spares no one and it threatens everyone; it has raged around the world for more than a year menacing anyone in its path. And yet the disease discriminates too: the old are hit harder than the young; the already-unwell suffer more than the healthy. Poor communities, with less access to health care, are in greater danger than rich ones; ditto poor and rich countries.
And then, too, there’s the COVID gender gap. Men may suffer a greater share of COVID-19 deaths and intensive-care hospitalizations than women, but by other measures—economic, racial, social, parental—this has very much been a women’s pandemic. In TIME’s new special issue , we explore how broken systems have worked against women throughout the pandemic—and how so many of them are stepping up to fight back.
Take the plight of pregnant women from Latin America, fleeing gang violence and poverty and arriving at the U.S. southern border in need of a safe place to give birth. It was hard enough to enter the country before the pandemic, with the Trump Administration’s “Migrant Protection Protocols” (colloquially known as the “remain in Mexico” policy) slamming the door shut. But things only got worse when COVID-19 hit and immigration courts shuttered in March of 2020. In response, as my colleague Jasmine Aguilera reports, immigration lawyer Taylor Levy has established the Mexico-based group “Las Zadas” (short for embarazada , or pregnant, in Spanish), to provide pregnant migrants food, shelter, free health care, legal advice, products for babies, and pre- and post-natal care like vitamins, menstrual pads and breast pumps.
Take the women who have lost their jobs during the pandemic—something that, as my colleague Eliana Dockterman reports, has happened with three times the frequency to American women with children than it has to men. More than 2.3 million women have dropped out of the U.S. labor force since the pandemic began; Black American women have been hit especially hard-hit, with their labor force participation at a 33-year low.
In response, more and more women pushed out of work are rising up and suing employers who failed to accommodate them during this once-in-a-generation national health crisis. At least 58 lawsuits were filed in the U.S. from April 2020 to February 2021—most of those by women and their advocates—alleging that an employer denied emergency parental leave, did not inform employees of their right to take emergency leave, or fired them for asking to work remotely or take leave while schools and daycare centers were closed.
Take the two single moms filmmaker Kathleen Flynn and TIME producer Spencer Bakalar followed in New Orleans as they fought landlords threatening eviction because the two women could not pay their rent in the midst of the pandemic. “My life right now is in two people’s hands,” said Ronda Farve, 29, who lost her job as a prep cook at a local restaurant. “It’s in the government’s hands, it’s in my landlord’s hands. [I’m] stressed out. I barely eat.” Take, finally, Jammella Anderson, who, as TIME’s Abby Vesoulis and Mariah Espada report , has made it her mission to set up refrigerators around Albany, N.Y., dispensing free food to the hungry. Similar initiatives run by women are operating in the South Bronx, Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere.
“If you want something done right, you call a woman,” Ebonee Bailey, who runs a roving produce market in North Carolina, told Abby and Mariah, “because we will handle it.” Handling it women are—as TIME’s special edition shows.
More than 107 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this morning, of which 80.5 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. Approximately 15.9% of the overall U.S. population has received at least one dose, and about 8.1% of Americans have gotten both doses.
In a statement issued today, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced that it has begun a review of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine to determine if it complies “with the usual E.U. standards for effectiveness, safety and quality.” A study published in the journal Lancet last month showed that the vaccine was 91% effective in protecting against infection, but Sputnik V’s hasty rollout has given European regulators pause. The E.U. has already approved shots made by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca, and, as the Associated Press reports, could greenlight the new Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine as early as next week. The EMA has not said when Sputnik V might be approved, but experts believe today’s announcement is a signal that the pace will be quick.
Just as Merck is helping to make the vaccine produced by competitors Pfizer and BioNTech, so too will Novartis pitch in to help manufacture the vaccine produced by CureVac, a German company, the Wall Street Journalreports. Novartis announced today that it plans to upgrade a factory in Kundl, Austria to make up to 50 million CureVac doses this year and as many as 200 million doses next year. Novartis said it has already invested $10 million into adapting its Austrian factory so that it could manufacture the rival company’s shot.
Worried about lack of data showing the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca vaccine in older people, Germany had refused to approve the shot for those in the 65 and over group. But as the Associated Press reports, the country’s vaccine approval committee today said it is reversing itself, green-lighting the AstraZeneca shot in seniors. The publication of new data on the vaccine’s effectiveness as well as pressure to speed up vaccine rollout across Germany both contributed to the committee’s move, officials said.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
More than 115 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 3, there were 439,709 new cases and 11,050 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:
More than 115 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 3, there were 439,709 new cases and 11,050 new deaths confirmed globally.
Israel, Austria and Denmark announced today that they are joining hands to develop and produce vaccines for future pandemics, as well as to respond to existing and future strains of SARS-CoV-2, reports the Jerusalem Post. Officials cited Israel’s success at vaccinating more than half its population to date, and the fact that all three countries have highly developed life science industries, as the reasons they came together. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed openness to expanding the new alliance further. “We agreed that if other nations want to join us, we’ll discuss it among ourselves and welcome others to come,” he said.
The World Health Organization team that traveled to Wuhan to report on the origins of the pandemic is calling off its plans to issue an interim report on its findings, according to the Wall Street Journal. The surprise move came as tensions between Washington and Beijing rise over the investigation and as an international group of two dozen scientists released an open letter calling for a new investigation entirely, complaining that the original team was not allowed sufficient access to Wuhan facilities to determine if the virus originated in a wet market or may have slipped from a laboratory. Beijing is at the same time calling for similar investigations in other countries to determine if the virus was exported to China in frozen food.
Progress continues to lag in getting vaccines into arms in France, where only 2.7% of France’s 67 million people have been fully vaccinated, reports France 24—and the pace doesn’t look likely to increase any time soon. At a press conference today, Prime Minister Jean Castex predicted only 10 million people would be vaccinated by mid-April and only 30 million—still less than half the population—by summer. The announcement came on the same day that President Emmanuel Macron announced he was scrapping plans to put Paris on a weekend lockdown, in order to keep the economy moving even as death rates creep up.
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 518,400 people have died. On March 3, there were 65,909 new cases and 2,468 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 Texans and Mississippians are shedding their masks and reopening their states in response to their governors’ lifting of COVID-10 restrictions, Alabama is moving in the other direction. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey today announced that she was extending her state’s “Safer at Home” policy, which includes a masking requirement, at least through April 9. At that point, she promised, it would end for good, but until then she wants residents to continue masking up. “We need to get past Easter and hopefully allow more Alabamians to get their first shot before we take a step some other states have taken to remove the mask order altogether and lift other restrictions” she said at a press conference announcing the decision.
California today announced it will set aside 40% of its vaccine doses for hard-hit and disadvantaged communities as part of what the state calls a “vaccine equity metric,” reports Reuters. The action comes as accounts surfaced that the state’s wealthy residents were being vaccinated at roughly twice the rate of the poor, at the same time lower income people were recording twice the case rate as families earning $120,000 or more.
Help may be arriving soon for beleaguered American workers in the form of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, but a year into the pandemic, the economy is still down by a whopping 10 million jobs, according to data published earlier today by the U.S. Department of Labor. Just last week, another 745,000 Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits. In addition, 436,696 workers applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits, available to self-employed and gig workers.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of March 4, 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
The Pandemic is Messing With Kids’ Minds
Young people may be spared the worst of the physical effects of the pandemic, but as I reported for TIME this morning, they’re being clobbered by its psychological impact. A new survey from the nonprofit FAIR Health has some sobering numbers comparing 2020 soaring mental health insurance claims in the 22-and-under group to those of just a year earlier. Read more here.
Asian-American Students Go Missing
Schools may be reopening across the U.S. but increasingly, as the Washington Post reports, Asian-American students are not returning to the classroom. Fears for elderly family members living in multi-generational homes and concerns about the possibility of kids facing racist harassment at school are leading many Asian-American parents to declare themselves pleased with online learning and inclined to continue it. Read more here.
Insurers Benefit From Biden’s COVID-19 Bill
Despite campaign promises to lower the age of Medicare eligibility and add a public option to the Affordable Care Act, President Biden has included neither measure in his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package. This, as my colleague Abigail Abrams reports, comes as a relief to the insurance industry—and a disappointment to Progressives. Read more here.
Low-Cost Fitness Makes a Return
With gyms either closed or seen as viral hot zones for many Americans, there is renewed interest in jogging, bicycling, body-weight training and other low-cost or no-cost fitness options, reports my colleague Jamie Ducharme. 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 Jeffrey Kluger and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
沒有留言:
張貼留言