Look, I get it: there's nothing fun about wearing a mask. In the winter they fog up your glasses, and in the summer, they get so muggy that it feels like they're generating their own rainforest microclimate around your face. But now that mass vaccination is underway, we can ditch these things pretty soon, right? Well, maybe not.
As my colleague Jamie Ducharme reports, masks have been a useful tool to fight COVID-19 for two major reasons: First, they can help protect the wearer from infection. Second—and more importantly—they can prevent the wearer from infecting others. At the moment, most places in the U.S. simply still have too much virus floating around to justify getting rid of our masks while in public. That goes for the nearly 20% of Americans who are fully vaccinated, too: recent studies suggest that inoculated people are at much lower risk of spreading the virus, but it's still a good idea to mask up in public as another layer of protection. (That said, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says vaccinated people can go unmasked while around other vaccinated people, or while around unvaccinated people at low risk from a single household.)
But what about months from now, when COVID-19 levels are (hopefully!) way down? There may still be times when masking up is a good idea—one expert told Jamie it might be justified "in high-impact settings, like public transit, long-term care facilities and hospitals." That's because, even after the current pandemic is over, masks could help control the spread of other annoying-to-deadly contagions, like the common cold and influenza. Still, there's a counterargument that exposure to less destructive pathogens can strengthen our immune systems. And given the number of Americans who have refused to wear a mask even during a deadly pandemic, it's unlikely that mask culture will take root here in a post-pandemic world anyway.
"We can’t even get [some] people to do it in the midst of the pandemic,” one expert told Jamie. “They’ve been lifesaving, but they do symbolize, to some extent, the restrictions that have been placed on all of us.”
For now, we're headed into a particularly weird phase of the pandemic—some people are vaccinated but most aren't, and virus levels remain high in many places. Personally, even after I get my second shot, I plan to keep masking up in public spaces—both to reduce the risk that I spread the virus to anyone else, and to keep people's minds at ease in case I encounter anyone who's not vaccinated. After all, I've worn this thing for a year, now—another few weeks or months won't kill me.
More than 207.8 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this morning, of which some 167.2 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. Approximately 31.6% of the overall U.S. population has received at least one dose, and about 18.8% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
While the rate of vaccinations is increasing across the U.S., the emergence of new viral variants could spell trouble for those who remain unvaccinated—especially younger Americans who were left out of earlier eligibility phases, CNN reports . "What we're seeing is pockets of infection around the country, particularly in younger people who haven't been vaccinated, and also in school-aged children," former Food and Drug Administration head Dr. Scott Gottlieb said on Face the Nation yesterday.
White House officials announced today that the Biden Administration is opening three new federal mass COVID-19 vaccine sites around the U.S.: one in Columbia, South Carolina; another in Pueblo, Colorado; and a third in St. Paul, Minn., bringing the total number of such sites to 28. Each of the new locations are considered "high-risk communities" where viral levels are high.
Johnson & Johnson is "assuming full responsibility" after 15 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine were ruined by a production error at Maryland subcontractor Emergent BioSolutions, J&J said in a Saturday statement. The company is now effectively taking over Emergent's operations, and says it remains on track to deliver nearly 100 million doses of its single-shot vaccine to the U.S. by the end of next month.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
More than 131.2 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 2.8 million people have died. On April 5, there were 448,398 new cases and 6,380 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:
Iran is facing a fourth wave of COVID-19 following Persian New Year celebrations, Al-Jazeera reports . While Iranians were discouraged from travelling during the holiday, they were allowed to visit cities other than those marked as "red" or "orange" on the country's official scale of regional outbreak severity. Iran has so far reported nearly 2 million cases and more than 63,000 deaths.
Things are also going badly in India, which reported its highest number of new daily cases today at 103,558—making it just the second country to cross the 100,000 mark in a 24-hour period, after the United States (of course, both countries are also highly populous). Indian officials are blaming the recent spike on people's unwillingness to mask up and stay socially distant.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded more than 30.7 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 555,000 people have died. On April 4, there were 32,282 new cases and 222 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:
In a report published today , the CDC linked 46 cases of COVID-19 to a single February bar reopening in Illinois—including 17 cases among people who didn't go to the bar, but were infected by someone who did. One person tied to the reopening was hospitalized, while another case forced the closure of a local school. "These findings demonstrate that opening up settings such as bars, where mask wearing and physical distancing are challenging, can increase the risk for community transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19," the report says.
More than 37,000 children in the U.S. lost at least one parent to COVID-19 as of February, according to a heartbreaking analysis published today in JAMA Pediatrics based on the CDC's official tally of coronavirus deaths. Three-quarters of those affected were adolescents. When the researchers ran their model based on excess deaths during the pandemic—a measure that compensates for issues like unreported or undiagnosed COVID-19 deaths—the number of affected children climbed to 43,000.
Air travel is beginning to rebound throughout the U.S., but not all destinations are enjoying the bump equally. As the New York Timesreports, passenger traffic to major cities like San Francisco is down from pre-pandemic times, while visits to smaller vacation hotspots like Jackson Hole are up—suggesting that people are seeking destinations perceived to be less crowded and thus safer from the virus.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of April 5, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Vaccine Cheat Days Are Adding Up
Families and social circles across the U.S. are having trouble navigating the rules around who can hang out with whom based on their vaccination status. The result? People are bending those rules in dangerous ways as daily case numbers rise across the country, The Atlantic reports. Read more here.
The U.S. Has Had 'Vaccine Passports' Before—And They Worked
As the debate over COVID-19 "vaccine passports" heats up, historian Jordan E. Taylor points out that such documents worked as intended during the fight against smallpox, and even "successfully pressured vaccine-hesitant populations to accept them," as he writes in TIME. Read more here.
We Have All Hit a Wall
Brain not feel good? My brain not feel good, either. Us not alone, Sarah Lyall write in New York Times. 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 Alex Fitzpatrick and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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