How was your Sunday? Hopefully it was more relaxing than it was for U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky, who appeared on what seemed like every Sunday news show imaginable to defend her agency's latest guidance, which says vaccinated people in the U.S. can largely go maskless even indoors.
That announcement shocked many in the public health world. It was poorly telegraphed, for one, and came just two weeks after the CDC—which has been conservative throughout the pandemic—said it was O.K. for the vaccinated to shed their masks outdoors, a major step that also proved controversial. While many welcomed last week's new guidance as a sign of the pandemic's end, others said it was premature, given the declining yet still relatively high amount of viral transmission in many parts of the country, and should be implemented based on a given region's relevant metrics, like the number of new daily cases being reported.
During her myriad TV hits yesterday, Walensky defended the CDC's decision as appropriate and based on the latest science. She also stressed that the agency's guidance is a recommendation rather than law, and political and corporate leaders can implement it as they see fit—though many cities, states and businesses have followed the CDC guidelines and relaxed or dropped their masking rules over the last few days. New York, for instance, will start following the new guidelines as of Wednesday, though California will wait about a month to give residents "time to prepare," per State Health Director Dr. Mark Ghaly.
"We were going to get to a place in this pandemic where vaccinated people were going to be able to take off their mask," Walensky said on ABC's This Week. "We're lucky to be there with the science that we have, and now we have to take this foundational step that is completely based in science and understand what it means as we open the entire country." Appearing on Fox News Sunday, she explained that the CDC's sudden about-face came after recently published studies showed the vaccines are remarkably effective in real-world use. "I'm delivering the science as the science is delivered to the medical journals and, you know, it evolved over this last week," she told Fox's Chris Wallace. “Everybody, as we are working towards opening up again after 16 months getting out of this pandemic, will need to understand what they need to do locally," she said on NBC's Meet the Press. "And this was not permission to shed masks for everybody everywhere"
Walensky's full-court press is unlikely to move some of the CDC's skeptics. Some say the agency has throughout the pandemic failed to grapple with the real-world ramifications of its decisions—in this case, there's no way to check a person's vaccination status, so some unvaccinated people may simply go maskless and lie if asked whether they got the shot. While that doesn't pose a major risk to vaccinated people around them, it does increase the risk to people who can't be vaccinated—like the immunocompromised or children under 12—or who haven't been able to get time off work to get the shot yet. Meanwhile, little in the country's recent history instills confidence in the honor system. "The expectation that the unvaccinated will all simply go with the guidance and stay masked," writes sociologist Zeynep Tufekci in the New York Times, "does not fit with what we’ve observed in this country over the past year."
Still, there's an upside to the CDC's move: perhaps it might convince some people to get vaccinated, either because they want to go maskless without a guilty conscience, or because they don't want to risk being unvaccinated around a lot of maskless people who may or may not have gotten the shot themselves.
Personally? I'm going to stay masked up indoors for the foreseeable future, even though I had the good fortune to be fully vaccinated as of early this month. The risk that I will spread or contract the virus is vanishingly low. But masking up at the grocery store is a small sacrifice to be respectful towards those who haven't gotten their shot yet, for whatever reason.
About 344.5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this afternoon, of which 272.9 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. About 37% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
A Phase 2 trial of Sanofi/GlaxoSmithKline’s experimental vaccine has shown promising results , the companies announced today, with a strong antibody response and no safety concerns reported among recipients. The companies will report more complete data in a peer-reviewed journal shortly, STAT reports. A Phase 3 trial will begin in the coming weeks, and the companies are producing large amounts of the vaccine even as trials continue in a bet that the drug will eventually be approved.
COVAX, an international effort to ensure global vaccine equity, is facing a 140 million-dose shortfall due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis in India, the BBC reports. Those doses were meant to come from India's Serum Institute, but Indian officials have halted vaccine exports to focus on the country's domestic vaccination campaign. Only about one in 10 Indian residents have received even a single dose so far.
Why isn't the United States—where vaccination rates are slowing and extra doses are going unused—sharing its excess supply with the world? In part, it's because those doses aren't just sitting in one big Indiana Jones-style warehouse somewhere—they're scattered across the country, Bloomberg reports, and gathering them together to ship out in a cohesive way would be a nightmare. Still, U.S. President Joe Biden announced today that his administration will ship another 20 million doses abroad on top of earlier promises, for a total commitment of 80 million doses so far.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
More than 163 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 3.3 million people have died. On May 16, there were 548,206 new cases and 10,090 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:
While much of the world's attention is on India, the coronavirus situation is also spinning rapidly out of control across much of South America, per TIME's tracker . Brazil has long been suffering from a runaway outbreak, but new spikes are now being reported in Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay and more. The situation on the continent is another reminder that, absent mass vaccination, new outbreaks can take hold at lightning speed.
As of today, people throughout the U.K.—where case numbers have crashed—are once again allowed to eat indoors at restaurants, drink at pubs, and visit friends' homes. But fears of a more transmissible variant first found in India are dampening some people's optimism. "I urge everyone to be cautious and take responsibility when enjoying new freedoms today in order to keep the virus at bay," U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement today.
Speaking of India: a devastating cyclone heading up the country's western coast is threatening lives and complicating the country's already sluggish vaccination efforts, Axios reports. Tropical Cyclone Tauktae, which had the wind speeds of a category 4 hurricane as of last night, has already been blamed for 12 deaths, and is expected to produce considerable ongoing wind and rainfall.
Taiwan, which is facing a sudden uptick in cases, is banning non-resident foreigners from entering the country as of Wednesday, Taiwan News reports. Taiwan is currently reporting a seven-day average of 71 new cases, up from just five at the beginning of May.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded more than 32.9 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. Nearly 586,000 people have died. On May 16, there were 16,864 new cases and 262 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:
Domestic extremists may take advantage of easing pandemic restrictions to conduct attacks, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned in a national terrorism alert issued Friday. While the alert doesn't mention any specific threats, it's a reminder that as one menace recedes, another may remerge; for example, the rate of mass shootings in the country has accelerated in recent months.
Air travel is absolutely, definitely back: the Transportation Security Administration screened more than 1.8 million passengers yesterday, another new pandemic-era high. That's about 70% of the typical pre-pandemic number, but it's up nearly 10% from just a week ago, suggesting people are ready to fly again now that nearly half of American adults have at least one vaccine dose.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of May 17, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
The Pandemic's End?
When will the pandemic really, truly end in the U.S.? Not until more children are vaccinated, a sizable group of epidemiologists told the New York Times. Read more here.
Should We Be Worried About the Yankees?
No, I'm not talking about the standings—22-18 and two games back is perfectly respectable— I'm talking about the COVID-19 outbreak that's affecting a handful of fully vaccinated players and staff. While that sounds scary, these "breakthrough cases" may simply be a matter of inoculated people shedding enough virus to test positive, but not to pose a major risk to others, per Politico. Read more here.
A Harrowing Story From India
It's hard to wrap your head around the human toll of a crisis like India's coronavirus outbreak. This harrowing tale of a pair of sisters making every attempt to save their dying parents, published in the Washington Post, reminds us of the humanity behind the data. Read more here.
At Last: Hugs
Let's end things on a positive note today: per the New York Times, hugs! 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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