Earlier this week, in an op-ed for TIME, actor and health activist Charlize Theron and Ford Foundation president Darren Walker called on G20 countries to help “end the immediate crisis of vaccine inequity today.”
These wealthy countries could do this, Theron and Walker wrote, by committing to donate doses of the COVID-19 vaccines to poorer countries; building better health infrastructure around the world; advocating for an end to intellectual property protections that limit manufacturing capacity; and combating misinformation that contributes to vaccine skepticism. Notably absent from their piece was any mention of COVAX, the organization built last year to prevent exactly the crisis Theron and Walker describe.
The World Health Organization-backed COVAX offered wealthy countries the chance to buy COVID-19 vaccines for their own citizens, while also raising money to donate shots to countries that could not afford them—the idea being that all parts of the world would receive shots at roughly the same pace. Clearly, that hasn’t happened. Continent-wide, Africa has just a 5% vaccination rate.
So where is COVAX in all of this? As I previously reported, the under-funded organization was boxed out by rich countries that bought up huge chunks of the vaccine supply early. It also relied too heavily on supplies from the Serum Institute of India, which had to pause vaccine exports when COVID-19 spiked in India this past spring, prompting the government to keep all domestically made shots within the country's borders. A new piece in STAT reveals major communications and logistical issues within COVAX. According to STAT, countries were often told at the last minute that they wouldn’t be getting the doses they were promised—if they could reach COVAX officials at all. Worse, some doses reportedly arrived spoiled or without syringes and other supplies needed to actually administer them. Some experts also alleged that COVAX officials ignored the needs and opinions of many of the lower-income countries they purported to serve.
After a slow start, COVAX now says it plans to distribute more than 1 billion doses before the end of the year. But its shortcomings have certainly meant excess disease and death—and placed a heavier burden on the shoulders of activists, private organizations and countries committed to ensuring vaccine equity.
About 482 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this morning, of which more than 399 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. About 56% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
More than 236.7 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 4.8 million people have died. On Oct. 7, there were 410,245 new cases and 8,206 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 44.1 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 710,000 people have died. On Oct. 7, there were 100,083 new cases and 2,392 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 Oct. 8, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Top physicians and scientists continue to clash with the Biden Administration over its booster shot strategy, according to a recent Politico report. Boosters are currently available only to immunocompromised individuals and high-risk adults who have gotten Pfizer-BioNTech’s shot—but the Biden Administration has said openly that it expects to expand access across the board soon. In a tense off-the-record call last week, according to Politico, several prominent experts urged Biden and his advisers to abandon that plan, citing a lack of data that a universal booster program is necessary. The debate is sure to continue, with both Moderna and Johnson & Johnson awaiting federal regulators’ approval of their own booster shots.
Some U.S. transplant centers are withholding donor organs from, or increasing wait times for, people who refuse to get the COVID-19 vaccine, Kaiser Health News reports. The rationale? By increasing their risk of severe COVID-19, these individuals may be putting the fate of their donated organs at risk, too. Such policies are not unheard of in the transplant world. People often cannot receive lung transplants unless they’ve quit smoking for at least six months, for example.
Moderna officials said yesterday that the company will build a vaccine manufacturing plant in Africa, a move that could greatly expand vaccine access on the continent—eventually. The plant could annually produce up to 500 million doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, along with Moderna-made shots to prevent other infectious diseases, but it’s unclear when it would actually open its doors. Moderna officials are still deciding which country will house the facility, according to the New York Times.
England removed dozens of countries from its highest tier of travel restrictions, meaning far more people can visit the country without completing an extensive hotel quarantine. Starting Monday, only seven of 54 countries previously on the “red list” will remain there: Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Venezuela.
In an encouraging sign of continued progress on COVID-19 containment, San Francisco will relax masking requirements for vaccinated people starting Oct. 15. As long as case and hospitalization rates do not go up, the city will allow people to go maskless in offices, gyms, religious centers and college classes if everyone present is vaccinated and capacity is capped at 100. Bars and restaurants, however, must still enforce masking rules for patrons who are not eating or drinking.
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 Angela Haupt.
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