For New York City parents, today is a big day: It's their last chance to get their kids vaccinated in time to be fully protected for the first day of school on Sept. 13.
That’s a good reminder for parents across the country. Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine is the only shot currently authorized for kids ages 12 to 17, and it takes five weeks to complete the full regimen. The second dose is scheduled for three weeks after the first, and it takes two weeks after the second shot for the immune system to build up a full response.
Parents and educators should keep that in mind, too. Since kids younger than 12 can’t get vaccinated, it’s crucial for as many adults and older children as possible to get their shots before back-to-school season—to keep cases as low as possible and to lower the chances of kids transmitting the virus to the older people in their lives.
Even some teachers’ unions, many of which have resisted vaccine mandates, are now reconsidering. Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, said yesterday in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that the Delta variant, which is sending case counts soaring and threatening schools’ reopening plans, has changed the equation. “I do think that the circumstances have changed, and that vaccination is a community responsibility,” Weingarten said.
Of course, schools have already started up in some parts of the country, and many are set to do so before Sept. 13. If your kids are already back in the classroom, or headed there soon, vaccinating them a little late is far better than never. And adults don’t even have to wait five weeks to get full protection, since they can get the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
In short: get whichever shot you can, as soon as you can.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
About 407.6 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of yesterday afternoon\, of which some 352.4 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. About 50.1% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
More than 202.6 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and almost 4.3 million people have died. On August 8, there were 401,439 new cases and 6,982 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 35.7 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. Almost 617,000 people have died. On August 8, there were 23,863 new cases and 111 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. 9, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
The Pentagon is joining the growing ranks of organizations requiring vaccinations. In a memo obtained by the Associated Press, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin writes that members of the U.S. military must get vaccinated by mid-September, or sooner if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration grants the shots full licensure before then. That mandate could prompt hundreds of thousands of people to get the shots, since only about 50% of Army members and 65% of active-duty Air Force personnel are currently vaccinated.
As vaccine mandates pile up, about a quarter of U.S. hospitals now require staff members to be vaccinated, the American Hospital Association says. Vaccine hesitancy among health care workers was a major problem in the early days of rollout, but that group now reports higher vaccination levels than the general public, CNN reports—and mandates at health care facilities could help cement that status.
The rise of vaccine requirements has led to the birth of an industry meant to cheat them, the Associated Press reports. Colleges and universities, many of which have required students and staff to get vaccinated, are reportedly growing increasingly concerned about students purchasing fake vaccine cards online. Some higher education officials are calling for digital proof-of-vaccination systems like those implemented in countries including Israel and China, instead of the paper cards used in the U.S.
You should get a vaccine even if you’ve already had COVID-19, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research published Friday. The study tracked hundreds of Kentucky residents who got COVID-19 in 2020. Those who did not get vaccinated after their initial infection were about 2.3 times more likely to get reinfected than those who got a shot after their first sickness, which suggests vaccines provide better protection than natural immunity.
More than 3,000 children in Louisiana tested positive for COVID-19 in the span of just four days this month, governor John Bel Edwards said on Friday. That means some 6,000 children in Louisiana are now sick with the virus—a reminder that kids of all ages can and do catch COVID-19, even if they are less likely than adults to experience severe disease. Louisiana is reporting a total of about 4,600 new COVID-19 cases per day—the highest it’s seen yet during the pandemic, and enough that Edwards reinstated the state’s indoor mask mandate through Sept. 1.
In related news, a New York Times story highlights that COVID-19 is not risk-free for young people. Some children (albeit a small percentage) have developed long-lasting symptoms like cognitive dysfunction, fatigue, insomnia and headaches after COVID-19 infection. Doctors are still learning about how to treat so-called Long COVID and why some people develop it and others don’t. Even less is known about how the condition affects children, since fewer cases have been reported among young people than adults.
Some countries, like China and Australia, have employed dramatic measures, including repeated lockdowns and border closures, to keep COVID-19 cases low. But, as CNN explores in a new story, countries can’t stay sealed off forever, and many are now weighing the right way to resume normal life. In Australia’s New South Wales, for example, officials have said they’ll consider easing up on containment measures when 50% of the population is vaccinated. With only 17% of Aussies currently protected, that’s a ways off—but experts say it’s a mark countries that aimed for “COVID zero” need to prepare for, since total containment is not a sustainable long-term strategy.
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 Jamie Ducharme and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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