It's the end of an era. Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the country’s preeminent experts on COVID-19, announced today that he will step down after 38 years as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in December, as well as from his positions as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden and chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation. In a statement, President Joe Biden praised Fauci for saving lives in the U.S. and abroad. “His commitment to the work is unwavering, and he does it with an unparalleled spirit, energy, and scientific integrity,” Biden said.
Fauci, who is 81 and has served under seven presidents beginning with Ronald Reagan in 1984, helped guide the country through decades of health crises including HIV/AIDS, Zika, Ebola, and of course COVID-19, as my colleague Alice Park reports. Fauci has been lauded by many for his leadership; he pioneered more efficient ways to test drugs during the HIV/AIDS crisis , for instance, and the pathways he put in place enabled the swift approval of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. He’s also been the target of political vitriol, especially among people who condemned his promotion of vaccines. Fauci was targeted with death threats and forced to use a bodyguard. However, he remained dedicated to his role, telling Alice last year, “If there is one challenge in your life you cannot walk away from, it is that most impactful pandemic in the last 102 years.”
In an interview with the New York Times yesterday, Fauci said that he had planned to step down at the end of President Donald Trump’s term, but changed his mind after Biden asked him to serve as medical adviser. However, Fauci still seems to think that there’s a lot of work to be done, adding that the U.S. “need[s] to do much better” on COVID-19, and that he’s hopeful the situation will improve over the next few months. “I’m not happy about the fact that we still have 400 deaths per day,” he told the Times.
While Fauci is stepping back from his three most prominent roles, in his statement, he underscored that he’s not planning to retire—at least, not “while I still have so much energy and passion for my field.” Fauci is firmly focused on the future. “I want to use what I have learned as NIAID director to continue to advance science and public health and to inspire and mentor the next generation of scientific leaders as they help prepare the world to face future infectious disease threats.”
More than 596 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 8 a.m. E.T. today, and nearly 6.5 million people have died. On Aug. 21, there were nearly 482,000 new cases and 881 new deaths confirmed globally.
Here's how the world 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:
And here's every country that has reported over 10 million cases:
The U.S. had recorded over 93.5 million million coronavirus cases as of 8 a.m. E.T. today. More than 1.04 million people have died. On Aug. 21, there were 7,536 new cases reported in the U.S., and 8 deaths were confirmed.
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 Aug. 22. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
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WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Pfizer-BioNTech today asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to authorize their Omicron-specific booster, which targets the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. The shots, which are intended for people over age 12, could start to ship immediately after authorization, the companies announced—which public-health officials have hinted could come in just a few weeks. In order to get to market sooner, the companies have only studied the shots in animals, but a clinical trial in humans is scheduled to begin this month.
On Friday, the FDA issued an emergency use authorization for Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine for people ages 12 to 17. The vaccine is about 80% effective against hospitalizations and deaths in this age group, and 90% effective among adults, according to Novavax data collected prior to Omicron's emergence. Some experts hope that the vaccine, which uses an older protein-based technology, will help increase the vaccination rate among young people. Only about 60% of kids ages 12 to 17 are fully vaccinated, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The FDA has ordered Pfizer to test an extra course of Paxlovidon people who experience a COVID-19 rebound infection after being treated by the drug, Bloomberg reported Friday. The company will need to provide results of a randomized control trial on the second course by September 2023. While Pfizer has said only about 1 in 50 people experience rebound after treatment with Paxlovid, some research indicates it’s more common.
First Lady Jill Biden, 71, is leaving isolation after testing negative for COVID-19 yesterday, the Associated Press reports.Biden, who was fully vaccinated and boosted twice, tested positive early last week and was treated with Paxlovid. She went into isolation for five days at a vacation home in Kiawah Island, S.C.
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Today's newsletter was written by Tara Law and edited by Angela Haupt.
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