The U.S. Bets Big on an Antiviral to Fight COVID-19
We’re not going to vaccinate our way completely out of this pandemic. With epidemiologists around the world increasingly accepting the reality that SARS-CoV-2 and its variants will become endemic viruses—like the seasonal flu—the push is on to develop antiviral medications that can be taken at home to prevent infections from leading to hospitalization and death. Today, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that the Biden Administration has authorized $3.2 billion to accelerate the development of antivirals already in the R&D pipeline, with the hope that at least one will be ready for release before the end of the year.
“The remarkable and rapid development of vaccines and testing technology has shown how agile scientific discovery can be,” said Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in an HHS statement. “We will leverage these same strengths as we construct a platform for the discovery and development of effective antivirals.”
The plan will focus on 19 drugs currently being investigated for their antiviral potential, with a goal of accelerating their development to Phase 2 clinical trials. Last week, the Administration already placed a major bet on one of the 19, announcing that it will purchase up to 1.7 million doses of an antiviral being produced by Merck, pending emergency use authorization or full approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Of the $3.2 billion being allocated, $1.2 billion is going to fund the creation of what the HHS calls “collaborative drug discovery groups,” hoping that the push to create a COVID-19 treatment will also create a developmental infrastructure for other antivirals to treat other diseases.
The new drugs could not only fill the breach left by the vaccine-hesitant who are slowing the push in the U.S. and around the world to reach herd immunity, they could also serve as a backstop against breakthrough infections—cases of COVID-19 that occur even among the vaccinated. Late last month, for example, the CDC reported more than 10,000 breakthrough vaccinations in 46 states as of the end of April, at a time when just over 100 million vaccines had been administered in the U.S. In Massachusetts alone, there have currently been a total of 4,000 breakthrough infections recorded, reported the Boston Herald today. That’s still a relatively small number—representing just 0.1% of vaccinated people—but does make the new drugs attractive.
“New antivirals that prevent serious COVID-19 illness and death, especially oral drugs that could be taken at home early in the course of disease, would be powerful tools for battling the pandemic and saving lives,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in the HHS announcement.
VACCINE TRACKER
About 375.1 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this afternoon, of which 312.9 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. About 43.9% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
The German biotech company CureVac NV admitted disappointing results in its new COVID-19 vaccine, reporting just a 47% effectiveness rate in a trial with 40,000 subjects, according to Reuters. The results come as a blow both to the company and to the European Union, which had reached a preliminary deal with CureVac NV to buy up to 405 million doses. The vaccine especially underperformed in those over 60—just the age cohort most susceptible to COVID-19.
Concerns over the effectiveness of China’s Sinovac vaccine have surfaced in Indonesia after 350 doctors who had received the shots nonetheless contracted COVID-19, reports the Washington Post. Most of the doctors were asymptomatic, but dozens had to be hospitalized and five have died. Many of the cases were reported in central Java, where infections have spiked due to the Delta variant, raising alarms that Sinovac may be less effective against the strain.
The vaccine gap between have and have-not nations is continuing to grow, according to the latest figures from Our World in Data. As of this morning, 20.9% of the world’s population had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, but for people in low-income countries, the figure is just 0.8%. Worldwide, 2.5 billion doses have been administered, at a current rate of 33.2 million shots per day.
A PROGRAMMING NOTE
The TIME Coronavirus Brief will be off tomorrow, to commemorate Juneteenth. Have a great weekend, and we will be back with you on Monday.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
The Global Situation
More than 177 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 3.8 million people have died. On June 16, there were 395,230 new cases and 10,253 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 3 million confirmed cases:
With the Olympic games set to begin in Tokyo in just five weeks, the government announced today that it will ease restrictions there and in other parts of the country, reports the New York Times . The announcement was made by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who said he based his decision on the fact that infection rates have slowed over the past month and that overcrowding in hospitals had begun to ease. Vaccination rates are up in Japan as well, with 684,000 shots administered yesterday, double the daily number from a month ago.
Europe is opening up soon as well, with the hope of attracting American tourism, a tentpole of the continent’s summertime economy. Yesterday, European Union ambassadors announced their support for a plan allowing U.S. residents back into E.U. countries as early as this Friday, according to the Associated Press. The U.S. is not yet ready to reciprocate, with bans continuing in place against visitors from most of Western Europe, the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland.
At least one senior Chinese official—Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention—is seeking to deflect blame for the origins of the pandemic, saying that the U.S. should be the focus of new investigations, according to Reuters. Citing news reports that the virus was present in five states in the U.S. as early as December 2019, Zhang told the government-run tabloid The Global Times that “All bio-weapons related subjects that the [U.S.] has should be subject to scrutiny." The U.S. has yet to issue an official response to the charge.
The Situation in the U.S.
The U.S. had recorded nearly 33.5 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 600,600 people have died. On June 16, there were 12,430 new cases and 368 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:
The rapidly recovering U.S. economy took a step backwards today, as the Department of Labor reported 412,000 jobless claims for the week. That was the first increase in jobless claims since April, as the accelerating pace of vaccinations and the easing of restrictions boosted hiring overall. Still, as the Associated Press reports, economists caution that a one-time uptick since spring is not necessarily a cause for concern and urge comparisons to a year ago, when weekly unemployment claims averaged 1.5 million.
In a possible sign of the old normal becoming the new normal, James Gorman, the influential CEO of Morgan Stanley—ranked 61st on the Fortune 500 list of America’s largest companies—announced that he expects the investment bank’s employees to be back at their desks come September, according to CNN. Gorman, speaking at a company investment conference, said he hopes nearly all employees will be vaccinated before returning, but either way stressed that a rapidly reopening New York City should mean rapidly reopening offices too. “If you can go to a restaurant in New York City, you can come into the office,” he said.
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of June 17, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Three-Day Weekends Forevermore?
With the pandemic having proven that companies can remain productive while structuring their work schedules in all manner of creative ways, Joe Pinsker argues in the Atlantic that this might be the perfect time to experiment with the permanent four-day work week. Read more here.
Where the Grim Gets Grimmer
Reporters Rodney Muhumuza and Farai Mutsaka of the Associated Press offer an alarming look at some of the world’s poorest countries, where a trifecta of factors—surges in infections, emerging variants and shortages of vaccines—are combining with deadly effect. Read more here.
The Struggles in South Asia
The G7 countries have pledged to expand vaccine donations throughout the world, but in South Asia, writes the New York Times, the promise is doing little to stem a vaccine-shortage crisis, triggered when India halted exports of the shots. 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 Jeffrey Kluger and edited by Elijah Wolfson
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