Fairly regularly since about March 2020, I’ve caught myself using a particular phrase: “after COVID.” In the early days of the pandemic, my mental image of “after COVID” was sometime in August 2020. I could picture myself on vacation, sipping espresso at a sidewalk cafe on a European boulevard with nary a face mask in sight. I certainly wasn’t imagining the reality we’re experiencing a full year after that fantasy vacation would’ve taken place. I’m fully vaccinated, with a more effective shot than I could’ve dreamed of at the start of the outbreak—but I’m still grabbing my face mask before I walk out the door, and I’m not planning to go abroad for at least a few more months.
That’s why I’m trying not to use the expression “after COVID” anymore. As my colleague Jamie Ducharme writes in her latest article, completely eradicating an infectious disease, like COVID-19, is incredibly difficult; in fact, humanity has only been able to do so once so far, in the case of smallpox. As Dr. Sandro Galea, an epidemiologist and dean of the Boston University School of Public Health, told Jamie, “There’s no plausible way I can imagine us getting to zero COVID-19, and I think it’s a distraction.” Instead, Galea suggests, we should focus on a more realistic goal: learning to live with the virus. To do this, we must ensure that the virus spreads as little as possible, and inflicts minimal harm on the people who do get sick.
Vaccines likely won’t be the gateway to a world without COVID-19, but they may be the key to a better reality. Although so-called “breakthrough” cases where vaccinated people get sick are discouraging, it’s important to remember that vaccines are still doing their most important job: preventing people from getting very sick and dying from COVID-19. And over time, slowing the disease’s spread through widespread vaccination helps to prevent the virus from mutating into potentially more virulent strains that can evade our immune systems’ defenses. It also gives scientists more time to find ways to deal with COVID-19; some treatments have already won U.S. Food and Drug authorization, and more are currently in development.
As time passes, global immunity to the COVID-19 virus will spread, both through vaccination and, sadly, as more and more people get sick. However, even as living with the disease begins to feel normal, we can’t begin to ignore it. As Jamie says, “Even if we end up living with the virus that causes COVID-19, we should still do everything we can to stop unnecessary deaths and disease—namely, getting vaccinated ASAP and continuing to wear masks in areas with high case rates."
Nearly 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 11, there were 665,762 new cases and 9,466 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. Nearly 618,500 people have died. On August 11, there were 135,177 new cases and 342 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. 12, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Surging hospitalizations across the American South are once again pushing health care systems to the brink. Although shortages of essential medical supplies are not the problem they were in the early months of the pandemic, many hospitals are now struggling with a shortage of healthcare workers, the Washington Post reports. Hospitals in states like Florida, Arkansas and Louisiana are struggling to hire nurses, forcing some hospitals to put some non-COVID-19 patients on the back-burner. The crisis is particularly dire in Texas, where health officials are warning that the health system is overloaded with patients, the New York Timesreports. Hospitals in Houston have put up tents to care for overflow patients, and in Austin, intensive care units are nearly full. The situation is on track to get worse; according to a projection by the University of Texas Modeling Consortium, about 10,000 people are currently hospitalized statewide with COVID-19, but hospitalizations could reach 15,000 by the end of the month.
As of writing, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is set to authorize a third vaccine shot for some people with weakened immune systems, including people who have had organ transplants, to improve their protection from COVID-19, the New York Times reports. Research has found that such patients sometimes have a weak immune response to the two-shot regimen, but can have a better immune response to a third shot. The new recommendation does not include Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose shot, partly because the FDA is awaiting results of a clinical trial on a two-dose regimen for the vaccine.
Fragile global supply chains are facing disruption after China partially shuttered the third-busiest container port in the world following the confirmation that a worker was infected with COVID-19, Bloomberg reports. Experts fear the shutdown could drive up prices and dampen economic growth around the world, especially as the global economy approaches the holiday shopping season. Recent history shows that such closures can cause major damage: in May, the month-long closure of a port in the Chinese city Shenzhen caused backups at factories and storage facilities, which are currently at record levels and are known to cause inflation.
Yet another department in the U.S. federal government has announced a coronavirus vaccine mandate. Secretary Xavier Beccera announced today the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will require its 25,000-member healthcare workforce to get vaccinated, including staff members at the National Institutes of Health and the Indian Health Service, as well as all contractors, trainees and volunteers who may come into contact with patients.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare workers have been required to get vaccinated since July 26, but starting tomorrow, all Veterans Health Administration employees, volunteers and contractors who are expected to make contact with patients and health care workers will also be required to get vaccinated, the Department said in a statement today. “This pandemic is not over and VA must do everything in our power to protect veterans from COVID-19,” said VA secretary Denis McDonough.
Want to visit New Zealand? Come 2022, you may have a chance again—so long as you’re vaccinated. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern debuted a plan today to enable vaccinated travelers to visit New Zealand again starting in 2022. The government plans to label countries as low, medium or high risk, and relax restrictions accordingly; travelers from low risk countries will no longer be required to quarantine, while those from moderate risk countries will have somewhat reduced quarantine mandates. Ardern said that the program will begin “once everyone who is eligible has been offered a vaccine and we have reasonable coverage,” around the beginning of 2022.
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 Tara Law and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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