Searching for the Source of This Pandemic—and the Next One
Science has learned a lot about SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, over the course of the pandemic—including how to vaccinate people against it. But as we approach the second anniversary of the virus' emergence, one big mystery still lingers: where it came from. The two leading theories—that it either leapt from a bat or other animal to humans, or it escaped from a lab—remain just that: theories. And as my colleague Jamie Ducharme reports, as time goes by, the odds of finding a concrete answer grow slimmer. Trying to reverse engineer the virus' origins at this point, Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, told Jamie, is like "going back to the scene of a crime two years later and the crime scene has been scrubbed."
All the same, the World Health Organization (WHO) has not given up. On Oct. 13, the WHO announced the formation of the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO), a team of international experts that will continue searching for the origins of the current pandemic and put in place protocols to come up with better, faster answers next time.
The new panel is made up of 26 proposed experts in fields including epidemiology, animal health, virology, genomics, public health and tropical medicine, selected from over 700 applicants. Unlike a WHO team that went to China in January 2021 to investigate the SARS-CoV-2 mystery—and came up with inconclusive findings—the SAGO researchers will not conduct fresh field research. Rather, they will review the existing studies and data to see if there are new clues to be found.
While there is no telling what leads may lie in the wealth of epidemiological findings accumulated over the past two years, Maria Van Kerkhove, who leads the Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses unit in the WHO's Health Emergencies Program, told Jamie that the purpose of SAGO is less to crack the SARS-CoV-2 mystery—which may well never happen—than to "do better next time," establishing best-practice models for how to strike quickly and thoroughly in looking for the source of the next emerging pathogen.
"Let's say another disease emerges tomorrow in country X," says Van Kerkhove. "This group can come together and take whatever information we have, whatever we know about the cluster or the case, and say, 'These things need to happen right now.'"
About 494.7 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of yesterday afternoon, of which nearly 408.8 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker . About 57% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
More than 241.1 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 4.9 million people have died. On Oct. 18, there were 412,864 new cases and 6,410 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 more than 45 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. Nearly 726,200 people have died. On Oct. 18, there were 116,553 new cases and 1,879 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. 19, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration may be planning to allow Americans to mix and match vaccines, the New York Times reports, citing unnamed people familiar with the agency's thinking. That news comes after study findings presented to the FDA last Friday found that recipients of the Janssen/Johnson & Johnson vaccine who received a Moderna booster showed a 76-fold increase in antibody levels over the next 15 days, compared to just four-fold when they received a second J&J shot. The FDA has not ruled yet, and the specifics of any mix-and-match plan it may approve are still unclear. What's more, the agency will not have the final word on the issue: This Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will also take up the mix and match question and issue its own recommendation.
Russia is backsliding badly: the country reported 1,015 deaths in the past 24 hours, its highest daily total since the start of the pandemic, the Associated Press reports. There were also 33,740 new infections over the same period. Government officials are planning a one-week lockdown beginning Oct. 30, though such a move requires President Vladimir Putin's approval. Officials blame the soaring infection rate in part on poor vaccine uptake: so far, only about 45 million people—or 32% of Russia's population—have gotten their shots.
New Zealand is facing a surge of its own, with 94 new infections yesterday for a total of nearly 2,100 in its recent outbreak, reports Reuters. The absolute numbers, while far smaller than Russia's, are coming as a jolt to the country, which had been a global model for pandemic control until the Delta variant struck. Moreover, the outbreak is occurring despite a relatively high national vaccination rate of 67%.
A handful of high-profile U.S. workers are quitting their jobs or being terminated after refusing to comply with vaccine mandates. At ESPN, college basketball and football reporter Allison Williams stepped down rather than being vaccinated, explaining that she and her husband are trying to get pregnant and "[t]aking the vaccine at this time is not in my interest" (The CDC is urging pregnant people to get vaccinated to prevent "serious illness, death and adverse pregnancy conditions"). At Washington State University, head football coach Nick Rolovich and four assistants have been sacked for refusing to comply with an executive order requiring vaccines for most state employees. Meantime, pilots and other employees at Southwest Airlines staged a protest yesterday at the company’s Dallas headquarters, objecting to a requirement that they be vaccinated by Dec. 8.
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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