The Fourth Wave is Starting to Look Worse Than the Third
Back in June, it didn’t really seem like such a crazy thought that we might really, actually, be out of the woods in this pandemic, at least in the U.S. Vaccinations were plentiful, cases were low, and frankly the whole world looked a bit rosier with a double dose of the Moderna vaccine running through your veins. It seemed that the terrible days of the previous winter’s COVID-19 case surge were firmly behind us, a calamity for the history books, not the news cycle.
But the Delta variant’s spread in pockets of the country where people have refused vaccines in large numbers has changed the situation. It once seemed we would never see last winter’s case counts again; in some states the current infection surge has already passed it, according to my colleague Chris Wilson. “I update our main COVID-19 dashboard every night, and always click through the states to look for weird anomalies, which happen a lot,” he says. “And I noticed a few days ago that a few states were about to puncture their previous peaks.” As of today, Hawaii, Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida had topped their previous winter case-load peaks in the current Delta surge, while Oregon is on the verge of joining them.
Hawaii is a bit of an outlier in that collection, having avoided the worst of this past winter’s COVID-19 surges by essentially cutting itself off from the outside world, as I reported late last year . That means that with a sizable current vaccination rate of 54%, it wasn’t too bad for the state to pass a very low previous case threshold. In the remaining four states, cases are simply surging out of control. “What’s particularly maddening is that all the signs of this happening were there,” Chris says. “We unmasked without any verification of vaccination status on May 13, when the completed vaccination rate was 35.8%.”
Rises in deaths typically lag about two weeks behind case increases, and it remains to be seen whether this current surge in cases will be as deadly as the ones that came before. In Louisiana, where about 38% of the population is fully vaccinated and the current daily death count is about 65% of the peak this past winter, the Delta surge may well end up being worse than the third wave, in terms of disease and fatality.
With cases rising around the country, it’s very possible that the nation as a whole will surpass its previous COVID-19 case-rate peak—and then, possibly, its death rate as well. “I’m really worried that it’s not going to end with these five states,” Chris says.
About 411.3 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of yesterday evening, of which nearly 353.9 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. About 50.4% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
More than 205 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 3 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 4.3 million people have died. On August 12, there were 684,874 new cases and 10,288 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 36 million coronavirus cases as of 3 a.m. E.T. today. More than 619,000 people have died. On August 12, there were 116,545 new cases and 614 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 Aug. 13, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Late last night, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized doctors to administer a third dose of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines to people with certain medical conditions that impair their immune systems. With cases rising due to the rapidly spreading Delta variant, FDA administrators faced growing calls to permit the extra shots for America’s about 9 million people living with weakened immune systems. There’s some controversy surrounding the FDA decision, given that it could take vaccines away from poorer countries desperately in need of them. Indeed, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, wrote a column for TIME published just yesterday, calling for the developed world to bar extra booster shots, though the organization has said such a ban should not apply to immunocompromised people.
Israel, one of the countries moving quickest to get booster shots to its citizens, today began offering third doses to people over 50 years old. Under assault from the Delta variant, Israel has not only authorized booster shots, but has reinstated mask mandates after being widely lauded for launching one of the world’s fastest and most effective vaccination campaigns. Experts have said that the country could again go into lockdown this fall, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Texas is bringing in 2,500 out-of-state medical workers to relieve demoralized and exhausted doctors and nurses in the state’s hospitals, CNBC reports. The Lone Star State has been contending with growing hospitalizations, particularly among young, unvaccinated people as the Delta variant spreads, while the state’s Republican Governor Greg Abbott has battled localities that have attempted to institute mask mandates to limit the virus’s spread.
Amid its worst coronavirus surge yet, Iran’s medical system is reaching its breaking point, according to a report from the New York Times. As hospitals overflow, thousands die and the country’s COVID-19 disaster worsens into catastrophe, the country’s medical establishment, cowed into silence by the county’s government, has begun to speak out more openly, particularly as national leaders continue to shun vaccines made in the U.S. or Britain, promoting a domestically-produced alternative that is still not available in sufficient quantities.
You’ll soon need proof of vaccination to hit the gym or get a drink indoors in San Francisco. Starting next week, S.F. is implementing a full vaccination requirement for those dining indoors, attending movies or participating in other indoor gatherings, according to rules unveiled yesterday. When they go into effect Aug. 20, those requirements will be some of the strictest in the nation, tougher even than those recently announced in New York City, which only will require restaurant patrons to have had one dose of a Pfizer or Moderna shot, or a J&J one-dose vaccination. San Francisco will require those who have gotten Moderna or Pfizer shots to be fully vaccinated.
Children born during the COVID-19 pandemic may be facing serious developmental challenges, according to a preliminary study published Wednesday. Researchers tested more than 600 young children in Rhode Island, finding that IQ scores for those born during the pandemic were worryingly low compared to benchmarks for children at the same ages born in previous years. The study has yet to be peer-reviewed, but the authors hypothesize that the results could be partly explained by the lost opportunities for socialization and stimulation outside the home during COVID-19 lockdowns.
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 Alejandro de la Garza and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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