Even If They Don’t Convince Anyone New to Get Their Shots, Vaccine Mandates Can Still Help Fight the Pandemic
Go outside, put on a blindfold, throw a frisbee as hard as you can, and you'll probably hit a company, agency, school or other organization that's requiring their employees, customers, students and so on to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Here's a very incomplete list of places with some form of vaccine mandate:
New York City, where shots will be required for city workers and people who want to dine, exercise or be entertained indoors.
The Pentagon, which U.S. President Joe Biden has ordered to come up with a plan to enact a mandate.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which recently became the first federal agency to issue a vaccine mandate.
Colleges and university systems, including California State University, Michigan State University, Syracuse University and hundreds more.
As we've discussed in this newsletter before, these kinds of mandates could prove critical for boosting vaccine uptake, which plummeted for most of the summer but is now rising slightly amid the rise of the more contagious Delta variant. Such mandates are largely legal, experts say, though full U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the shots could make it easier for bosses, school administrators and so on to issue them without fear of lawsuits.
However, there's another, less-appreciated benefit of many of these mandates. In most cases, people affected by employer mandates who choose not to get vaccinated can instead opt for regular testing, typically done weekly. Whether weekly tests of unvaccinated people can really keep a workplace or a classroom safe is a matter of epidemiological debate, but what's certainly true is that we badly need more testing to be done across the country.
After hitting a high of nearly 2 million in mid-January during a major viral spike, the seven-day average of daily tests performed in the U.S. fell below 500,000 early last month, per the Coronavirus Resource Center at Johns Hopkins University, as testing took a back seat to vaccination. That figure is on the upswing as people once again scramble to get tested amid yet another spike; it currently stands at about 850,000.
That's a promising sign. Even in a semi-vaccinated world, testing is an essential public health tool—if someone tests positive, they know to self-isolate and avoid spreading the virus as much as possible. Moreover, given the remarkable transmissibility of the Delta variant, the more testing, the better, so that public health officials can track viral spread at the local, state and national levels. That work is especially important given that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)'s new mask guidance is geographically targeted based on testing results, meaning it's vital to ensure those data are as comprehensive as possible. If people opting out of vaccine mandates and opting into regular testing can get us back above the 1 million daily tests mark (or higher), that will be a welcome development. (Of course, it's better for people to get their shots, which are safe and effective, even against Delta.)
In fact, there's a decent argument that even if you're vaccinated and not subject to any kind of mandatory testing, getting tested regularly is a noble act of civic duty. By adding critical data into the epidemiological picture, you can help public health officials and other leaders make the best possible decisions—not to mention keep yourself and your loved ones safe just in case you develop a breakthrough case. Given that home testing kits are now readily available and fairly affordable, there are few good reasons not to be regularly testing yourself at times of heightened spread, like right now.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
About 470.7 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of yesterday afternoon, of which some 347 million doses had been administered, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. About 49.7% of Americans had been completely vaccinated.
More than 199.5 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 4.2 million people have died. On August 3, there were 598,149 new cases and 9,757 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 35.2 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 614,200 people have died. On August 3, there were 106,557 new cases and 616 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. 4, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
The FDA is aiming to fully approve the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine by Labor Day, the New York Times reports, citing "multiple people familiar with the plan." The shot is currently being administered under emergency use authorization; full approval could make it easier for companies, federal agencies, schools and other institutions to mandate vaccination. The move could also make a dent in vaccine hesitancy, as about 30% of unvaccinated adults say they'd likely get the shot if it were fully approved, per a June KFF poll.
Less than a week after its sweeping evictions moratorium lapsed, the CDC issued a new, more targeted version that applies only in places with "high" or "substantial" levels of viral spread. As my colleague Abby Vesoulis reports, the move comes amid a standoff between the Biden Administration, which argued that only Congress had the legal authority to extend the moratorium, and progressive Democrats, who demanded that the White House take action given lawmakers' failure to extend the ban while millions of American families remain on the precipice of homelessness.
Record-setting case and hospitalization figures aren't changing the mind of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who insisted in a briefing yesterday that he won't issue new lockdowns to quell viral spread. "These interventions have failed time and time again throughout this pandemic, not just in the United States but abroad," DeSantis said. "They have not stopped the spread. And particularly with Delta, which is even more transmissible, if it didn't stop it before, it definitely ain't going to stop it now." He may have a point: a Delta-fueled outbreak in the U.K. seems to be ebbing even though leaders there abandoned most of their coronavirus restrictions, though that country has at least partially vaccinated nearly 70% of residents, compared to Florida's roughly 58%.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is calling on countries to not administer booster shots before the huge swaths of the global population that have not gotten their initial doses can do so. "We cannot and should not accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccines using even more of it while the world’s most vulnerable people remain unprotected," WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters today. Vaccination rates remain perilously low in many parts of the world—only 5.3% of Africa's roughly 1.2 billion people are fully inoculated, for instance.
Chinese officials have issued strict new travel restrictions amid that country's most serious coronavirus outbreak in months, the Guardian reports. Citizens are being advised to avoid traveling between regions, while the government is entirely suspending most non-essential international travel. More than 400 cases have been identified in the latest outbreak, a significant number in a country that has to date successfully used lockdowns to quickly cool viral flare ups.
Among those who've had to change their plans amid the rise of the Delta variant: former U.S. President Barack Obama, who dramatically cut the guest list for his 60th birthday celebration, set for this Saturday. "Due to the new spread of the Delta variant over the past week, the President and Mrs. Obama have decided to significantly scale back the event to include only family and close friends," an Obama spokeswoman said in a statement this morning. The decision came after right-wing pundits and lawmakers slammed the planned gathering as a potential superspreader event.
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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