Back in January 2021, as the United States entered the second year of the pandemic, Dr. Rochelle Walensky seemed to be a reasonable choice for the top job at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Despite never holding a government position, she had scientific know-how plus experience advising a state (Massachusetts) during the pandemic, as well as the social expertise so necessary in an effective leader.
While those credentials earned Walensky her role at the CDC, it’s still far from clear whether they’ll be enough to surmount the challenges she’s faced leading the organization through the pandemic. While COVID-19 has been a major crisis for health organizations around the world—even those without the CDC’s scale—the U.S. agency, in particular, is facing an unprecedented crisis of trust. While addressing one of the greatest health crises in national history, Walensky has been tasked with leading colleagues dispirited by the pandemic, and restoring the public’s faith not only in the CDC, but in science.
As my colleague Alice Park reports, it’s been a tough balancing act for Walensky: limiting the spread of the virus, while also adapting to the economic and social reality of pandemic America. After stepping into the director role, she moved to make information about the pandemic more accessible to the public, launching the COVID-19 Data Tracker, a dashboard counting hospitalizations, deaths and other metrics, though some have criticized it for not being updated quickly enough. Walensky has also tried to convince the public to take the pandemic seriously. After a speech last March in which she described a sense of “impending doom," she was faulted for being too dramatic. Meanwhile, the shifting pandemic and advances in scientific evidence have forced the agency to pivot rapidly and make calls such as cutting the isolation time for infected people in half, from 10 days to five.
That decision has faced tremendous pushback and illustrates the scrutiny Walensky continues to receive from the media and public. “It’s hard when every time you change a word on the website, everyone responds immediately,” Captain Amanda Cohn, who was serving as the CDC’s vaccine lead, told Alice.
As 2022 begins, the country still has a lot of work to do to convince many people to take action on COVID-19, and Walensky admits COVID-19 remains a “formidable foe.” However, Walensky says we know what to do to keep people safe: combining vaccination, boosting, masks in indoor spaces and self-testing. “The hard work now is just coming together as a country and recognizing what we need to do in order to keep one another safe,” she says.
More than 618 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of yesterday afternoon, of which more than 513.8 million doses have been administered, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. About 62% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
Nearly 297.8 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 12 a.m. E.T. today, and nearly 5.5 million people have died. On Jan. 5, there were more than 2.5 million new cases and 7,711 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 5 million cases:
The U.S. had recorded nearly 58 million coronavirus cases as of 12 a.m. E.T. today. More than 832,000 people have died. On Jan. 5, there were more than 643,669 new cases and 1,986 new deaths confirmed in the U.S.
Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending in terms of cases:
And in terms of deaths:
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 Jan. 6, 12 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
The CDC yesterday expanded booster shot eligibility to kids ages 12 to 15, and strengthened its recommendation that older teens receive Pfizer-BioNTech booster shots five months after completing their initial regimen. CDC director Walensky said it’s “critical that we protect our children and teens from COVID-19 infection and the complications of severe disease.” As of yesterday, more than 4,000 children hospitalized in the U.S. have confirmed or suspected COVID-19, setting a pandemic record, according to an analysis by the Washington Post. Hospitalizations of children with COVID-19 have risen steeply in recent weeks: fewer than 2,000 kids had been hospitalized with the disease on Dec. 25.
All 92 cruise ships carrying passengers in U.S. waters have reported COVID-19 cases and reached the CDC’s threshold for investigation, which grants the agency the ability to step in and coordinate on health and safety on the ship, the Washington Post reports. Last week, the CDC warned travelers to avoid cruises regardless of their vaccination status, given the rise in cases aboard ships. However, cruise lines have pushed back on the CDC’s messaging. Cruise Lines International Association argued in a statement that companies have taken ample measures to mitigate spread, including incorporating testing, masking and sanitation.
Australia revoked the visa of Novak Djokovic, the top men’s tennis player, amid controversy over an exemption from vaccine requirements he’d received to play in the Australian Open, the BBC reports. Border officials said that Djokovic "failed to provide appropriate evidence" for entry, and the athlete was transported to a government detention hotel, awaiting a court decision on his deportation.
Japan yesterday asked U.S. forces in the country to stay on base to limit the spread of COVID-19, the Associated Press reports. Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said he made the request after U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken assured him there would be more stringent efforts to protect public health; it’s unclear whether bases will issue a curfew. American forces have faced criticism after the area near their bases experienced a COVID-19 surge.
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 Tara Law and edited by Angela Haupt.
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