Thursday, January 20, 2022 How the Biden Administration Fumbled Its First Pandemic Year Two years into the pandemic, we are not where we hoped we’d be. One year into Joe Biden’s presidency, he isn’t either. In this week's TIME magazine cover story, my colleagues Molly Ball and Brian Bennett take stock of Biden's first year in office. "If Biden had one job coming in, it was to get the pandemic under control,” Molly and Brian write. But despite assembling an all-star team of infectious disease and public health pros, there are more new COVID-19 cases now than ever before in the U.S., and the Administration’s response has been riddled with mistakes. Things got off to a promising start. Biden vowed to follow the science, a refreshing change from former President Trump’s denial and anti-science vitriol. The early months of the vaccine rollout to millions of Americans went relatively smoothly. But the successes petered out when two variants—first Delta, and now Omicron—surged in the U.S. With schools now struggling to stay open and hospitals overwhelmed, this is not a pandemic conquered—even though Biden declared it was in July. One of Biden's key COVID-19 failures that now haunts the U.S. was his early inaction on rapid at-home testing. Advisers pushed him to purchase millions of these tests in early 2021, but the Administration instead focused solely on vaccines, Molly and Brian report. Because the U.S. did not prioritize or scale access to rapid tests, they are expensive and hard to find even now. That's not the case in many other countries that have a better handle on the virus. Playing catch-up has been a pattern throughout the pandemic year of Biden's presidency. Only this week did the White House finally announce that it would be distributing free N95 masks, along with four free rapid tests, to the general public, even though experts have long advocated for these moves at the bare minimum. Coupled with a lack of preparation is a communications crisis at the highest levels. Leadership at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has utterly confused the public with conflicting statements on boosters and quarantine guidance. “I would argue that the American people have less trust in federal health officials now than a year ago,” Dr. Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University, told Molly and Brian. At this point, Americans are exhausted and fed up with a pandemic that just won’t end and a federal response that just can’t tame it. These bleak challenges may not only exact a high public health price, but also a political one. Read more here.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK Note: Due to some technical difficulties, we do not have our usual charts and maps available today. We are working on a fix, and expect to have them up to date on the site later tonight, and in tomorrow's newsletter. In the interim, here are the top-line numbers from the past 24 hours: Cumulative Totals Global Cases: 338,983,194 Global Deaths: 5,565,198 U.S. Cases: 68,663,297 U.S. Deaths: 857,768 Daily Numbers for Jan. 19 Global Cases: 4,231,832 Global Deaths: 10,412 U.S. Cases: 990,425 U.S. Deaths: 3,810 14-day Averages as of Jan. 19 Global Cases: 2,936,894 Global Deaths: 7,002 U.S. Cases: 779,647 U.S. Deaths: 1,734 All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Jan. 20, 12 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW Today, Austria's government voted to require COVID-19 vaccines for all adults in the country starting next month, Bloomberg reports. It became the first country in the European Union to make the vaccine universally obligatory. People who refuse to get vaccinated and who do not have a medical exemption can be fined up to €3,600, while those who get the shot will be entered into a lottery. Nearly 72% of adults in Austria are fully vaccinated, an insufficient rate to end the pandemic, officials said. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced today that it is providing $103 million in funding for initiatives to fight burnout and mental health problems among health care workers. “This funding reflects the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to ensuring we have enough critical frontline workers by supporting health care providers now and beyond as they face burnout and mental health challenges,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra in a press release. The agency hopes that these programs will encourage health care workers, who have quit in droves during the pandemic, to stay in medicine. COVID-19 cases in Africa have dropped "significantly" for the first time since Omicron was first identified, the World Health Organization announced today. New cases fell by 20% in the week leading up to January 16, and deaths dropped by 8%. New cases in South Africa, where Omicron was first sequenced, have been trending downward for the past four weeks. But more vaccinations and better access to therapeutics are still needed, said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.
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. If you were forwarded this and want to sign up to receive it daily, click here. Today's newsletter was written by Mandy Oaklander and edited by Elijah Wolfson. |
沒有留言:
張貼留言