One of the most pressing questions in the course of the pandemic was asked early on, over Scotch and nachos one night in January 2020. Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and Dr. Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), were at the World Economic Forum's annual conference in Davos, Switzerland, talking about the new coronavirus which was then just emerging in Wuhan, China.
"'If this does evolve into a pandemic,'" Hatchett remembers asking, "'how are we going to get [vaccine] doses to developing countries?'"
One answer, which Hatchett proposed in a white paper he wrote in March of 2020, was to form a global initiative that would facilitate the development of vaccines through advance agreements that would fund research at pharmaceutical companies and then secure some of those doses for distribution to countries around the world—whether those countries could pay for them or not. Thus was born COVAX, the global vaccine distribution project.
It was a grand idea, but it's fallen on hard times. As my colleague Jamie Ducharme reports, COVAX has distributed more than 240 million vaccine doses in 139 countries—which sounds like a lot, except that it's well short of the pace needed to reach the organization's goal of distributing 2 billion doses by the end of 2021. COVAX now expects to have access to 1.4 billion doses by this year's end, and to hit 2 billion in the first quarter of 2022.
COVAX has been hobbled by a host of problems. For one thing, wealthy countries bought up shots before they could make it into the group's stockpiles. The U.S. and China, global leaders who could have done much to help bankroll the program, initially opted out of it altogether. Washington ultimately pledged $4 billion over two years, but not until January of 2021, after President Joe Biden was inaugurated. What's more, COVAX set a goal to have 20% of recipient countries' populations vaccinated by the end of 2021—a target that, for wealthy countries, likely seemed unambitious at best. "Do you think [that] would be considered a success for the U.S.? No," Mark Eccleston-Turner, a medical law and ethics expert at Keele University in the U.K., told Jamie. "Having such a low target perpetuated this injustice."
Once COVAX started delivering vaccines, in February 2021, other problems arose. Distribution was based on population, for instance, with more shots going to bigger countries. But that strategy ignored the fact that countries suffering worse outbreaks had a more urgent need. Moreover, some countries have struggled with a lack of storage and distribution infrastructure, complicating their rollout efforts.
The good news, as Lawrence Gostin, a World Health Organization advisor and a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, put it to Jamie, is that while COVAX earned a C, at best, in implementation, it was an A+ idea. For the next pandemic—or even going forward in this one—there is plenty of opportunity to raise that grade.
About 450.5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this morning, of which more than 376.9 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. About 53.3% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
More than 222.5 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 6 a.m. E.T. today, and nearly 4.6 million people have died. On September 8, there were 583,620 new cases and 9,895 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 4.5 million cases:
The U.S. had recorded nearly 40.5 million coronavirus cases as of 6 a.m. E.T. today. More than 652,600 people have died. On September 8, there were 176,682 new cases and 2,143 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 Sept. 9, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
The Biden Administration today rolled out a six-pronged approach to combating the latest U.S. coronavirus wave, which—in addition to booster shots and increasing vaccine access—calls for requiring that large employers issue vaccine-or-testing mandates, lowering the retail cost of at-home tests, sending Defense Department teams to assist overwhelmed hospitals and more. The moves come as the pandemic's toll continues to worsen across the country, which has recently been reporting close to or more than 2,000 deaths a day.
U.S. jobless claims fell again last week, dropping to a new pandemic-era low of just 310,000, the Labor Department reported today. The four-week moving average is just 339,500, also a pandemic-era low. The strength in the labor market continues a trend that began in July and is a sign, says the Wall Street Journal, that employers are holding onto existing workers despite the recent rise in coronavirus cases.
Los Angeles is expected to become the first major U.S. school district to require COVID-19 vaccines for children 12 and older, the New York Times reports; the city's board of education is set to vote on the measure today. If it passes, the ruling will affect 600,000 students, who will be required to receive their first dose by Nov. 21 and their second by Dec. 19. Children who turn 12 during the school year will have a grace period of 30 days during which to get their first shot.
Tokyo and other parts of Japan will remain under emergency restrictions at least through the end of September, officials announced today. The rules, which call on residents to work from home and refrain from traveling, cover 80% of Japan's population and are intended to relieve pressure on the country's medical system, which is struggling amid a fifth wave of the pandemic. On the upside: vaccination rates are rising, and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told reporters that he expects that all residents who want to be vaccinated will be able to get their shots by the end of November.
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 Jeffrey Kluger and edited by Alex Fitzpatrick.
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