The Near-Impossible Feat of Traveling With a Dog During the Pandemic
Months ago, while Marine Sgt. John Weldon was deployed in Syria, he began raising a days-old puppy that could hardly stand. The black-nosed pup, named Sully, is currently well enough to prance around the Marine base—but Weldon, who’s now back home in California, doesn’t know when he’ll see him again.
As my colleague Melissa Chan reports, dogs from more than 100 countries are still blocked from entering the U.S., keeping people like Weldon separated from their pets. (Cats aren’t included in the ban.) You can blame COVID-19: pet adoptions surged during the pandemic, and many Americans rescued dogs from overseas . However, hundreds of those puppies arrived in the U.S. with forged rabies vaccine cards, prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to crack down. The nation’s first widespread travel ban against dogs went into effect July 14 and is expected to last through at least July 2022.
Some veterinary experts support the CDC’s stringent rules. Up to 100,000 dogs are imported into the U.S. each year from high-risk rabies nations, Melissa reports, such as Russia, Ukraine and Colombia. Dog rabies kills about one person every nine minutes globally, many of whom are under age 15. Though it’s been eliminated in the U.S. since 2007, the disease is serious, and just one infected dog could become a public-health nightmare. “The canine strain would change things completely,” says José Arce, president of the American Veterinary Medical Association. “It could be a domino effect, and it could just go wild.”
That leaves pet owners with dogs stranded overseas in a bind. The CDC is issuing dog-import permits on an “extremely limited basis” that would allow some Americans to fly in dogs from high-risk nations. Applying for them isn’t easy, though: “The application is extremely vague and frustrating,” Weldon told Melissa. “I just want to get my dog home.”
And it’s about to get more difficult. Right now, pet owners with permits can fly their dogs into 18 airports nationwide, but in January, that will drop to three: New York City, Los Angeles and Atlanta. Plus, airlines like Delta and United aren’t permitting dogs in cargo. Figuring out how to get pets home has been like “trying to nail jello to the wall,” says Dr. Walter Woolf, founder of Air Animal Pet Movers—in some cases, costing pet owners more than $30,000.
More than 541 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this afternoon, of which more than 434 million doses have been administered, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. About 58.5% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
More than 250.8 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 5 million people have died. On Nov. 9, there were 467,823 new cases and 7,917 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 million cases:
The U.S. had recorded more than 46.6 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 755,600 people have died. On Nov. 9, there were 79,820 new cases and 1,644 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 Nov. 10, 1:30 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Pfizer and BioNTech yesterday asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize booster shots for all adults. A third shot is already available to Americans age 65 and over, and to certain groups that are at high risk based on health problems, living situation or their job. To help make its case that expanded eligibility is the right move, Pfizer submitted the results of a booster study in 10,000 people that indicate that, after a third shot, the vaccine was about 95% effective at preventing symptomatic disease.
The U.S. has negotiated a deal to send extra doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine to conflict zones, the New York Times reports. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said today that the move is part of an effort to expand vaccine access in areas that don’t have their own adequate government-run programs. He did not specify the number of doses that would be provided, when it would happen or which countries would receive them. In some conflict zones, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Yemen, less than 2% of the population have been vaccinated.
Approximately 900,000 U.S. kids ages 5 to 11 got a COVID-19 vaccine in the first week since government officials approved the shots, according to a White House news briefing today. That represents about 3% of children in that age group. In addition, some 700,000 kids have appointments for a shot scheduled for the coming days, NPR reports.
Around 8 million additional tons of plastic waste were generated during the pandemic, mostly by hospitals. That’s according to findings from researchers based in China and the U.S., published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. The consequences are already playing out: as of July, 61 animals had been reportedly killed or harmed by pandemic-linked plastic waste; for example, by ingesting or getting tangled up with plastic gloves or face shields.
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 Angela Haupt and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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