Many doctors I’ve interviewed over the past few years have said they hope the pandemic will change the U.S.’ cultural norms around illness, discouraging “just tough it out” attitudes in favor of staying home from work or school when unwell.
But cultural change is difficult when policy doesn’t support it. And still, after more than two years of pandemic living, the U.S. doesn’t have strong national policies on paid sick leave, my colleague Emily Barone found when she dove into the data for a new story.
“The pandemic has spurred some change—just not sweeping, dramatic change at a federal level,” Emily says. “Instead, what we're seeing is a more gradual change, which suggests that better leave policies are coming from the ground up, via worker demands, individual companies that are offering more PTO flexibility, and a handful of state and local government policies.”
Today, 16 states have paid leave laws on the books, up from 10 prior to 2020. But as of March, 77% of U.S. private industry workers got at least some paid sick time—only slightly higher than the 75% who did in March 2020, Emily found. And there’s still a major gap between high and low earners. As of 2022, 94% of the country’s highest earners are granted sick leave, while only about 55% of the U.S.' lowest earners—including lots of people whose work must be done in person—get that benefit.
That’s clearly a problem for individual workers, who may have to forgo wages for as long as they stay home. But it’s also problematic for public health. If people can’t afford to miss work when they’re sick, they may end up infecting coworkers and customers. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us, firsthand, how dangerous that can be.
More than 618 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 11 am. E.T. today, and more than 6.5 million people have died. On Oct. 2, there were 170,591 new cases and 414 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 more than 96.3 million coronavirus cases as of 11 a.m. E.T. today. Nearly 1.06 million people have died. On Oct. 2, there were 5,342 new cases reported in the U.S., and 0 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 Oct. 3. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
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WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Only about a third of U.S. adults have gotten an Omicron booster or plan to get one as soon as possible, according to a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Confusion may be part of the reason: about 40% of respondents weren’t sure if the updated boosters were recommended for them. (For the record, the shots are recommended for any vaccinated person 12 or older who hasn’t had a COVID-19 vaccine dose or infection in the last several months.)
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has made some well-publicized communication blunders during the pandemic, such as flip-flopping on who should wear a mask and how the virus spreads. A new NBC story, based on anonymous interviews with CDC staffers, suggests those mishaps have eroded not only the public’s trust, but also that of the CDC’s own personnel. “When people ask, ‘where do you work?’ I used to say that ‘I work at CDC’ with pride,” an employee told NBC. “Now I just tell people that I work in public health and not exactly where.”
After two years of declines, the U.S. suicide rate rose by about 4% from 2020 to 2021, provisional federal data suggest. The report did not speculate about why suicide rates went up, but as my colleague Tara Law reports, many researchers have predicted that pandemic-related isolation, stress, and life changes could leads to upticks in suicidal behavior.
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Today's newsletter was written by Jamie Ducharme and edited by Angela Haupt.
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