As many as 10-30% of COVID-19 patients become so-called "long haulers," dealing with symptoms that range from annoying to utterly debilitating and which can last for months, if not longer. Working with the lower end of that range, let's assume that 10% of the 34.1 million people in the U.S. who've tested positive so far end up as a long hauler. That's 3.41 million, many of whom lack the financial means to seek adequate care, especially given that some can't work and thus often lack health insurance.
Some of those millions, my colleague Abigail Abrams reports, are now turning to one of the U.S. government's oldest social safety net programs for help: Social Security, created as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and which, in part, offers disability payments to some Americans who are no longer able to work. But as Abigail reports, a deluge of applications from COVID long haulers threatens to overwhelm the Social Security Administration (SSA), which has long been teetering on edge of fiscal calamity (I, a 32-year-old American, have been taught more or less my entire adult life not to count on Social Security still existing when I'm of retirement age).
"SSA has seen its budget cut dramatically in the last 10 years, even as its number of beneficiaries grew by 22%," Abigail writes. "It has closed 67 offices around the country since 2010 and shrunk its call center staff, resulting in more busy signals, longer wait times and fewer calls answered according to a report by the SSA Inspector General in May 2020."
Even for those who technically qualify for Social Security benefits, getting their hands on any money can be like pulling bureaucratic teeth. But in this potential chaos, Abigail found, advocates see a moment for long-needed reform. Perhaps, the thinking goes, lawmakers will be sympathetic enough to long haulers' plight that they will find a way to fix Social Security for good.
“COVID long haulers represent the largest influx of new entrants to the disability community in modern history,” Rebecca Vallas, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and a former disability lawyer, told her. “There have been a few key moments in history, and this is one of them, where we have not only the opportunity but the urgent imperative, to wake up and realize which policies are incredibly long overdue for change.”
Whether that happens depends, as so many things do, on money. The Biden Administration's wants to hike the SSA's budget by 10%, but advocates say that's far from enough even without a crush of COVID-related claims. "Even if 100% of these [long COVID] claims are denied, you still have to decide them," a former SSA official told Abigail. "And that’s really time consuming. And so, it’s going to take a lot of staff time. And it’s going to take a lot of money. As a result, it’s going to put even more strain on this agency that’s already under a lot of strain."
About 391.2 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of yesterday afternoon, of which some 339.1 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. About 48.8% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
More than 191.4 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 4.1 million people have died. On July 20, there were 529,526 new cases and 42,703 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's every country that has reported over 3 million cases:
The U.S. had recorded more than 34.1 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 609,500 people have died. On July 20, there were 42,703 new cases and 298 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:
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of July 21, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
The more transmissible Delta variant now accounts for 83% of new U.S. coronavirus cases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a Senate committee hearing yesterday. "In some parts of the country, the percentage is even higher, particularly in areas of low vaccination rates," she added. During the same hearing, White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci sparred with Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky over the National Institutes of Health's involvement in controversial research that some believe contributed to the pandemic's origins.
The Janssen/Johnson & Johnson vaccine appears to be less effective against the Delta variant, according to a study published in preprint form on bioRxiv this week. The researchers arrived at their conclusion by working with laboratory samples rather than analyzing real-world performance of the J&J shot, but their results—which have not yet been peer reviewed—are yet another data point suggesting that the roughly 13 million Americans who've received that shot may end up needing a booster of the mRNA-based Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines for maximum protection.
The first year of the coronavirus pandemic reduced the average American's life expectancy by 1.5 years, down to 77.3 years, per a CDC analysis released yesterday. That's the lowest level since 2003, and the largest one-year drop since World War II. The falloff was even steeper for Black Americans, who are now expected to live an average of 2.9 fewer years than before the pandemic, compared to a 1.2-year decline for white Americans—a difference caused by the outbreak's unequal toll on various racial groups.
For most of the pandemic, American Conservatives have generally been somewhere between "meh" and "actively opposed" to vaccination—former President Donald Trump, for instance, never really hyped up the shots, even though his Administration's Operation Warp Speed contributed to the breakneck pace of their development. But there's been a sea change in recent days, as The Atlantic's David A. Graham writes, with notable right-of-center politicians and media figures like Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and Fox News host Sean Hannity urging their followers to get inoculated. The shift, Graham notes, comes as the Delta variant is hitting particularly hard in Red America, and could result in a welcome bump in the country's waning vaccination rate.
India has officially reported fewer than 500,000 coronavirus deaths. But according to a new study from the Center for Global Development—a Washington, D.C.-based international politics think tank—the country's actual death toll could be as high as 4 million. The analysts reached their conclusion by studying excess death reports and data from household surveys. "All estimates suggest that the death toll from the pandemic is likely to be an order of magnitude greater than the official count," reads the report. "Understanding and engaging with the data-based estimates is necessary because in this horrific tragedy the counting—and the attendant accountability—will count for now but also the future."
Apple, which has been unusually eager to get employees back in their offices compared to other Big Tech firms, is pushing back its reopening plans by at least a month amid the latest Delta-fueled spikes in the U.S., the New York Times reports. It's the most high-profile example yet of a major American company modifying its return-to-work strategy in response to the latest alarming indicators pointing to a potential fourth wave. "As the situation continues to evolve, we’re committed to the same measured approach that we have taken all along," reads an email sent to company employees obtained by the Times.
With the 2020 (yes, they're still called that) Olympics underway, you may be wondering: what actually happens when an athlete there tests positive for COVID-19? My colleague Alice Park, who's in Tokyo to cover the Games, has the answer: after two positive tests, infected athletes are moved to a dedicated hotel, their contacts are traced and tested, and an advisory group reviews their case to determine whether they can safely keep competing. It's unlikely, however, that those who end up in isolation will be able to go on with their events—especially considering that they may miss essential early rounds of competition.
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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