Widespread accessible rapid testing—tests you can take at home, without a prescription, that let you know if you've been infected in real time—could have saved thousands of American lives during the worst months of the pandemic. But it's not too late for such tests to still have a big impact in the U.S.
What's the use now, you might wonder, with free and effective vaccines available to millions of eligible Americans? You'd have a point: "The time to 'flood the system' with rapid tests was 12 months ago," writes Dr. Michael Mina, assistant professor of epidemiology and immunology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in a new column for TIME. "But now is still better than never."
Just because vaccines are freely available doesn't mean enough Americans are getting them—only about half of U.S. adults are vaccinated so far, and COVID-19 is still infecting thousands of Americans daily. Rapid testing, Mina writes, can prevent infections (as people who test positive can isolate themselves), control outbreaks and help defend against more-transmissible variants spreading worldwide. Mass rapid testing could also help public health officials watch for signs of waning protection among vaccinated people.
Throughout the pandemic, Mina has been calling on lawmakers and other leaders to prioritize rapid testing. For such tests to be affordable and widely accessible, he argues, the U.S. government needs to subsidize their manufacturing and distribution, like it did with vaccines. "The White House has focused on vaccines over testing, but why not give each household a box of 20 free rapid at-home tests after a family member gets vaccinated?" Mina asks.
So far, the government hasn't listened. But embracing rapid tests now, when the number of cases is more manageable than at most other times during the pandemic, could help open up schools and workplaces and allow people to travel. It could even more quickly end the pandemic, Mina argues. "We know that the combination of vaccines and rapid tests will drive down community transmission to a point where we can effectively eliminate the virus," he writes.
About 359.8 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this afternoon, of which 289.2 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. About 39.7% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
New data out of Washington, D.C. are confirming fears that vaccine hesitancy and access issues could cause troubling disparities between racial groups: Black people account for more than 80% of the city's new cases in recent days, compared to 46% last year before vaccination began, the Washington Post reports. It's a trend reflected in other parts of the country, and directly related to who's getting vaccinated. "I am terrified that this thing could become a Black and Brown disease, and that it will stay in our community for a long, long time," said Reed Tuckson, founder of the Black Coalition Against COVID-19, during a call with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and other community leaders yesterday.
William Shakespeare, the second person in the U.K. to get the coronavirus vaccine, has died at age 81 after a stroke. His wife, Joy, said in a statement that he had been grateful and proud to get the vaccination so early. "He often talked to people about it and would always encourage everyone to get their vaccine whenever he could," she said, the New York Times reports.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
More than 167.8 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 3.4 million people have died. On May 25, there were 531,845 new cases and 12,752 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 2.5 million confirmed cases:
India's government wants social media companies to bar users from referring to the COVID-19 variant ravaging the country—B.1.617—as the "Indian variant," my colleague Billy Perrigo reports. Though the request is not likely to be legally enforceable, it reflects growing concern that naming a variant after a country can lead to hate—just as anti-Asian hate crimes spiked in the U.S. after former President Donald Trump repeatedly called COVID-19 the "China virus." The World Health Organization (WHO) says it's rethinking how variants are officially named.
A group of top scientists have joined a growing chorus of experts criticizing the International Olympic Committee (IOC)'s plan to go ahead with the summer Olympics in Tokyo this year despite Japan's escalating outbreak. "We believe the IOC's determination to proceed with the Olympic Games is not informed by the best scientific evidence," the group wrote in a New England Journal of Medicineperspective paper published yesterday. The authors recommend that the WHO convene an emergency committee of experts to better shore up the IOC's plans to keep participants safe. Japan currently has more than 70,000 active cases (compared to fewer than 1,000 when the Olympics were postponed last year), and less than 5% of people there are vaccinated. As it stands, vaccination won't be required for the 15,000 athletes and support staff set to arrive in the country for the competitions.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded more than 33.1 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 590,900 people have died. On May 25, there were 22,756 new cases and 621 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:
President Joe Biden asked the U.S. Intelligence Community today "to redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion" about the origins of COVID-19, and called for a report within 90 days. Biden's request comes after several top U.S. officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci and former Food and Drug Administration chief Dr. Scott Gottlieb, have recently supported further investigation into the pandemic's beginnings. So far, there is not enough evidence to tell whether the pandemic began via human contact with an infected wild animal or in a laboratory accident, the U.S. Intelligence Community concluded earlier this month. Biden also called on China, which has been criticized for interfering with earlier WHO research into the pandemic's origins, to cooperate.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) authorized cruise line company Royal Caribbean Group to launch "test cruises" with volunteer passengers next month to assess its COVID-19 protocols and response plans, the Miami Herald reports. It's a major milestone for the battered U.S. cruise ship industry, which has largely been at a standstill since March 2020.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of May 26, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
The CDC Will No Longer Track Mild Breakthrough Cases
The controversial move, announced this month, means that the CDC will only follow COVID-19 breakthrough cases that result in hospitalization or death. But even mild cases among vaccinated people can have long-lasting effects, and ignoring those means missing out on valuable data, the New York Times reports. Read more here.
The Many Legal Battles About Vaccine Mandates
A single New York City law firm with close ties to the anti-vaccine movement is behind legal action initiated by groups across the country challenging vaccine mandates, the Washington Post reports. 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 Mandy Oaklander and edited by Alex Fitzpatrick.
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