Covid-19 Live Updates: Over Two Million Around the World Have Died From the Virus – The New York Times
January 16, 2021
Heres what you need to know:A funeral in Indonesia on Monday for someone who died from the coronavirus.Credit...Dedi Sinuhaji/EPA, via Shutterstock
Two million dead.
It is more people than call the state of Nebraska home and about equal to the population of Slovenia. It is roughly as many people who are estimated to have died in the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. And it is more than the total number killed in the decades of Soviet and U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan combined.
The global death toll from the coronavirus soared past the two million mark on Friday, just over a year after the virus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
In addition, there have been almost 500,000 unexpected deaths globally over the past year, a review of mortality data in 35 countries shows providing a clearer, if still incomplete, picture of the toll of the crisis. Far more people died in most of these countries than in previous years, The New York Times found.
And the carnage is spreading faster now than at any other time in the pandemic.
It took more than nine months for the world to pass one million deaths in late September, a moment that the United Nations secretary-general, Antnio Guterres, called mind-numbing and an agonizing milestone. In just a little over three months, the virus has claimed another one million lives.
And as it spreads, it continues to evolve.
It is the same virus, but several variants now circulating around the world are the subject of urgent scientific study as some have been shown to be even more infectious than the iteration that at one point last spring forced about four billion people to shelter at home.
One variant that stymied efforts to contain outbreaks in Britain in the fall is now responsible for a flood of patients that is stretching the nations hospitals to the breaking point, officials say.
The World Health Organization said this week that the variant had been detected in 22 European nations, and governments across the continent continue to tighten restrictions in response to the threat. More than 230 million people across Europe are now under full national lockdowns, according to the W.H.O.
Even before the new variants were discovered, the death toll in the United States already dwarfed that of any other country. The virus has now killed nearly 400,000 Americans, according to a New York Times database. And with the countrys new cases still averaging about 240,000 cases per day, there are few signs of it slowing.
Next week, as president, Joseph R. Biden Jr. will take charge of what has been perhaps the worlds most disjointed response to the pandemic. In the course of the past year, even the decision of whether to wear a mask became politicized.
Mr. Biden like his counterparts around the world will have an increasingly available tool at his disposal in the form of vaccines. He has vowed to have 100 million doses in arms during his first 100 days in office, and other governments have likewise made ambitious pledges.
But the initial rollouts in many countries have been met with problems: logistical confusion, shortages of doses, unequal distribution and bureaucratic hurdles that have slowed the process of getting shots into peoples arms.
Israels inoculation process has been the fastest, with roughly 25 percent of its population of nine million getting vaccinations in just one month. Britain has sped up its efforts; more than three million people have now been given at least a first dose of a vaccine. And Italy says it has given a million shots.
So far, there is no evidence that any of the variants affect the viability of the vaccines that countries have approved for emergency use. However, scientists have cautioned that this may not always be the case as the virus continues to mutate.
In nations where the virus appears to have been tamed, the authorities are maintaining vigilance to ensure that it doesnt re-establish its grip.
In China, where the market at the epicenter of the outbreak remains closed but others are again open, a team of experts from the W.H.O. arrived this week to begin hunting for the source of the pathogen and how it made the suspected leap from animals to humans.
The viruss origin is just one of the many enduring mysteries of a virus that has officially infected nearly 100 million people, and likely many more, around the world. And this week, underscoring just how persistent and pervasive it is, it claimed its first life in China since May.
transcript
transcript
Vaccines offer so much hope. Were grateful for the scientists and researchers and everyone who participated in the clinical trials. Were grateful for the integrity of the process, the rigorous review and testing thats led to millions of people around the world already being vaccinated safely. But the vaccine rollout in the United States has been a dismal failure thus far. And in todays briefing, we discussed five things, five things well do, in an attempt to turn things around. First, we will immediately work with states to open up vaccinations to more priority groups. The process of establishing priority groups is driven by science, but the problem is the implementation has been too rigid and confusing. The second thing were going to change, if were getting more people vaccinated, then we need more vaccination sites. Thats what were going to harness the full resources of the federal government to establish thousands of community vaccination centers. The third change were going to make is were going to fully activate the pharmacies across the country to get the vaccination into more arms as quickly as possible. The fourth thing were going to do is were going to use the full strength of the federal government to ramp up supply of the vaccines. As I said before, well use the Defense Production Act to work with private industry to accelerate the making of materials needed to supply and administer the vaccine. Fifth, we will always be honest and transparent about where we stand, both the good news as well as the bad. Were going to make sure state and local officials know how much supply theyll be getting. And when they can expect to get it so they can plan. This will be one of the most challenging operational efforts ever undertaken by our country. But you have my word, and we will manage the hell out of this operation. But as I said last night, we need funding from Congress to make this happen, and Im optimistic. Im convinced the American people are ready to spare no effort and no expense to get this done.
WASHINGTON President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., racing against a surge in coronavirus cases and the emergence of a new variant that could significantly worsen the pandemic, is planning a vaccination offensive that calls for greatly expanding access to the vaccine while promising to use a wartime law to expand production.
But his plan is colliding with a sobering reality: With only two federally authorized vaccines, supplies will be scarce for the next several months, frustrating some state and local health officials who had hoped that the release of a federal stockpile of vaccine doses announced this week could alleviate that shortage. Trump administration officials clarified Friday that the existing stockpile would only go toward giving second doses to people who had already received the vaccine, and not to new groups of people.
The vaccine rollout in the United States has been a dismal failure so far, Mr. Biden said. The honest truth is this, things will get worse before they get better. And the policy changes we are going to be making, theyre going to take time to show up in the Covid statistics.
The president-elect said he would invoke the Defense Production Act, if necessary, to build up vaccine supply. But the team also sought to tamp down expectations. Mr. Biden said his plan wont mean that everyone in these groups will get vaccinated immediately, because supply is not where it needs to be. But, he added, it will mean that as doses become available, well reach more people who need them.
The Biden team promised to ramp up vaccination in pharmacies, and build mobile vaccination clinics to get vaccine to hard-to-reach and underserved rural and urban communities, emphasizing equity in distribution.
Mr. Biden spoke of the tragic reality of the disproportionate impact this virus has had on Black, Latino and Native American people, adding that equity is central to our Covid response.
Like the Trump administration, Mr. Biden called for states to expand the vaccine eligibility groups to people 65 or older.
The administration will also make programs available for high-risk settings, including homeless shelters, jails and institutions that serve individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the fact sheet said.
In some respects, Mr. Bidens proposals echo those of the Trump administration, which also called earlier this week for opening vaccine eligibility to groups to 65 and older, making greater use of pharmacies and moving vaccinations to federally qualified health centers. The Trump administration has also frequently used the Defense Production Act to give vaccine makers priority with suppliers for raw ingredients and other materials.
Mr. Biden unveiled the vaccine distribution plan just one day after he proposed a $1.9 trillion spending package to combat the economic downturn and the Covid-19 crisis, including $20 billion for a national vaccine program. The president-elect has said repeatedly that he intends to get 100 million Covid vaccine shots into the arms of the American people by his 100th day in office.
When the federal government announced Tuesday that it was releasing a stockpile of vaccine doses, some state health officials expected to get a boost in their weekly shipments to help address soaring demand for the vaccines as the pandemic rages out of control.
But now, the states face a stark reality. That stockpile consisted only of vaccines earmarked for booster shots for people who had already received a first dose. That means the release of this pool will not expand inoculations to a new group of people. Federal officials have said second doses will be prioritized in the weekly shipments to ensure everyone can get a booster shot.
A senior administration official said on Friday that the government expects the two companies producing vaccines, Moderna and Pfizer, to supply between eight and 12 million vaccine doses per week to the American public over the next several weeks shipments that will then be divided among those getting their first and second shots. The two companies have deals with the federal government to supply a total of 200 million doses to the United States or enough to fully vaccinate 100 million people by the end of March.
The confusion stemmed from a call that Alex M. Azar II, the federal health and human services secretary, held on Tuesday with reporters and top Operation Warp Speed officials, in which he chided states for not efficiently using the vaccines they had already been sent and urged them to open up eligibility to people 65 and older. Some states, including New York, quickly followed the federal governments advice and opened their doors to a wider group of people, prompting a surge of interest and confusion as thousands of newly eligible people sought appointments to get vaccinated.
This next phase reflects the urgency of the situation we face every vaccine dose that is sitting in a warehouse rather than going into an arm could mean one more life lost or one more hospital bed occupied, Mr. Azar said.
Later in the call, he said that We are releasing the entire supply we have for order by the states, rather than holding second doses in physical reserves. Going forward, he said, no vaccine doses would be held in a stockpile, and each weekly shipment would go toward people needing a first as well as a second dose.
That announcement prompted several states to assume that they would get an influx of new doses that could be used to vaccinate new people, as first reported by the Washington Post.
On Friday, Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon, a Democrat, tweeted that she had received disturbing news on Thursday evening: States will not be receiving increased shipments of vaccines from the national stockpile next week, because there is no federal reserve of doses. She added, I am shocked and appalled that they have set an expectation on which they could not deliver, with such grave consequences.
However, senior administration officials clarified on Friday that all of the reserve doses were already dedicated to people who had gotten the vaccine, and that Mr. Azar was actually just spelling out the logical extension of a distribution policy that had been established by top federal officials in December, when shipments began.
In a statement, a spokesman for the federal health department said that nearly 13 million doses were made available to states so they could order their first and second doses, which is millions more than previous weeks. The spokesman, Michael Pratt, also said that many states have not ordered up to the full amount that they have been allocated by the federal government.
I think states have been doing their best to plan with whatever information they can get from the feds on expected future allocations, and then revising those plans if they get less, said Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. What is more concerning is that public expectations have been raised and limited supply may lead to significant disappointment.
During the first few weeks of distribution, Gen. Gustave F. Perna, the chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, the federal effort to develop and distribute a vaccine to the American public, decided to hold back half of the weekly shipments of vaccine to save those doses for the people who had received an initial shot. He said at the time that it was important to be cautious as manufacturing was getting underway, and to hold onto a stockpile of second doses in the case of any manufacturing glitches.
Even then, his decision came under criticism by public health experts who argued that the focus should be on getting as many people as possible their first dose of a vaccine since clinical trials showed even the first dose offers some protection given that the country was facing record cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
But federal officials stuck to their plan, and as the weeks passed, that stockpile gradually depleted as those who had received the initial shots from Pfizer needed their second dose, which is given three weeks later. The first people who received the Moderna vaccine are now due for their booster shot, which is given four weeks later.
Senior administration officials said Friday that the remaining second doses drawn from that reserve are being distributed this week and next week to the states, and that they were never intended to be used toward vaccinating additional people.
From now on, officials said Tuesday, each weekly shipment from the manufacturers will include doses for new people as well as second doses for those who are due for their booster shots.
Scientists and pharmaceutical companies developed the two federally authorized Covid-19 vaccines in record time, but their distribution has fallen far short of initial goals. Federal officials had promised that 20 million people would be immunized before the end of 2020, but only about 9.7 million have received their first dose so far.
Federal, state and local officials have traded blame for the faulty rollout, with the federal government accusing states of being overly prescriptive in who can get the vaccine and not having put in place plans to quickly distribute it. But state and local authorities have countered that they were not given enough money to do the job properly, and scaling up distribution has been difficult because they cannot predict how many doses they will have from week to week.
Even as states have complained about federal deliveries, many have struggled to give out all of the vaccine doses they have been sent. Overall, only about 36 percent of the 30.6 million doses that have been distributed have been injected into arms, according to federal data.
But as vaccination drives have picked up, that is changing and some states and local governments have warned they are running out. On Friday, New York City said it expected to exhaust its supply of doses by early next week.
Since the turn of the century the number of international migrants has intensified, driven by desires to avoid armed conflicts and humanitarian disasters, escape political repression and seek economic opportunities elsewhere. But the Covid-19 pandemic blunted that trajectory in 2020, according to data compiled by the United Nations.
In a report released Friday, the Population Division of the U.N.s Department of Economic and Social Affairs estimated that through the middle of last year, the number of new international migrants was about 5 million, or about 2 million fewer than what had been expected.
Around the globe, the closing of national borders and severe disruptions to international travel obliged hundreds of thousands of people to cancel or delay plans of moving abroad, the department said in the report. Hundreds of thousands of migrants were stranded, unable to return to their countries, while others were forced to return to their home countries earlier than planned, when job opportunities dried up and schools closed.
Before the Covid-19 disruptions, the report said, the number of international migrants had grown robustly over the past two decades, reaching a total of 281 million in 2020, roughly equal to the population of Indonesia.
In another barometer of the collapse in travel caused by the pandemic, the civil aviation agency of the United Nations said in a report Friday that the number of airline passengers fell by 60 percent in 2020 1.8 billion passengers compared with 4.5 billion in 2019. The report, by the International Civil Aviation Organization, said the reduction had taken air travel totals back to 2003 levels.
Battling a new variant of the coronavirus within its borders, Britain on Friday toughened measures to guard against importing infections from abroad, announcing that anyone arriving in the country must take a Covid-19 test before traveling and quarantine themselves upon arrival.
The new announcement effectively suspends a so-called travel corridor system under which people could come to Britain from a limited and dwindling number of nations judged to be low risk without restrictions.
From Monday, anyone who has come from or traveled through any country outside the United Kingdom and Ireland in the previous 10 days will be required to take a pre-departure Covid-19 test and show a negative result. He or she will have to go into self-quarantine for 10 days on arrival, though that period can be shortened to five days by taking a second Covid-19 test after spending several days in Britain.
The government also promised to toughen enforcement by increasing the number of spot checks on passengers entering the country.
We are operating in a completely new environment in our fight against Covid-19, with several worrying new strains of the virus emerging across the globe, said Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, in a statement, explaining that the new measures apply to British and Irish citizens as well as other nationalities.
The move comes on the heels of a decision to suspend flights to Britain from South America and Portugal amid fears over the spread of variants of coronavirus, such as those first identified in Brazil.
Britain has been hit hard by a surge in cases caused by the spread of a new and highly transmissible variant of its own. For the week ending Jan. 14, the country reported an average of 52,977 new cases daily and 1,072 deaths. On the positive side, more than 3.2 million Britons have received a first vaccination against the virus.
Speaking to press on Friday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was vital to take extra measures now, when, day by day, we are making such strides in protecting the population.
Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, welcomed the new restrictions but criticized ministers for being slow again.
Many people will say, Why on earth didnt this happen before? he told news outlets.
Federal health officials sounded the alarm Friday about a fast spreading, far more contagious variant of the coronavirus that is projected to become the dominant source of infection in the country by March, potentially fueling another wrenching surge of cases and deaths.
In a study released on Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that its forecasts indicated outbreaks caused by the new variant, which was first identified in Britain, could lead to a burgeoning pandemic. It called for a doubling down on preventive measures, including more intensive vaccination efforts across the country.
The variant is not known to be more deadly or to cause more severe disease. But the dire warning hedged by limited data about just how prevalent the variant has become landed in a week where the nations nascent vaccination campaign was hampered by confusion and limited supplies as demand grew among growing numbers of eligible people.
As of Friday, the variant first discovered in Britain had been detected in more than 70 cases from 13 states most recently in Oregon but the actual numbers are likely to be much higher, said Dr. Jay Butler, deputy director for infectious diseases at the C.D.C.
Current spikes in cases threaten to cripple already overwhelmed hospitals and nursing homes in many parts of the country. Some are at or near capacity. Others have faced troubling rates of infection among their staff, causing shortages and increasing patient loads.
I want to stress that we are deeply concerned that this strain is more transmissible and can accelerate outbreaks in the U.S. in the coming weeks, said Dr. Jay Butler, deputy director for infectious diseases at the C.D.C. Were sounding the alarm and urging people to realize the pandemic is not over and in no way is it time to throw in the towel.
We know what works and we know what to do, he said.
Covid cases and deaths have broken record after record across the country, with a peak number of deaths, 4,400, announced on Tuesday. At least 3,973 new deaths and 238,390 new cases were reported on Thursday, and the nation is nearing a milestone of 400,000 deaths.
One in 860 Americans have died of Covid-19 in the last year, according to new figures released by the C.D.C. But the burden of deaths has not fallen equally across racial, ethnic lines and geographic regions, and there is concern that vaccines will not reach the hardest hit communities, where access to health services is limited and distrust is rampant.
After a sluggish first month, the pace of coronavirus vaccinations is accelerating to the point that New York City and other places in the state expect to exhaust their supply of doses as early as next week, officials said on Friday, causing several health facilities to alter their immediate inoculation plans.
On Thursday, Mount Sinai Health System, one of the citys largest hospital networks, canceled many upcoming vaccination appointments for older patients, saying the doses it had anticipated receiving were no longer likely to arrive.
Northwell Health, the largest health provider in the state, said it was not scheduling additional appointments for the next several days given its limited supply.
Around New York, officials in at least one county said they had only enough doses to last through the weekend, echoing a similar sentiment by city officials.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday on Brian Lehrers radio show that New York City would run out of doses by next week.
It makes no sense that were being starved of the capacity we need, the mayor said.
State officials warned this week that they were growing increasingly worried about the supply, pleading with federal officials to increase the number of doses they send every week. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has said the state receives only about 300,000 doses per week, although he indicated on Friday that the state had been told its weekly supply would be sliced to 250,000. About 100,000 of them go to New York City, Mr. de Blasio said on Friday.
Seven million people for 250,000 doses per week? Every distributor, everyone is gonna say, I need more, Mr. Cuomo said on Friday in a news conference. As a result, he said New York City should expect to receive fewer doses because the state gets less.
This week, federal officials indicated that more doses from a stockpile would be sent to states. But they have since clarified that the batch is actually from a tranche saved for second doses. (People are considered fully vaccinated after receiving two doses.)
Until recently, New York City had been struggling to quickly administer vaccines, leading to a backlog of doses. But in recent days, the pace of vaccinations has picked up drastically because of expanded eligibility and because many new vaccination sites have opened over the last week.
Mr. de Blasio argued that the federal government should prioritize vaccine distribution to areas that are inoculating quickly. I think until the supply increases much more nationally, go where the ability to vaccinate is strongest, he said. As soon as we get it in now, its going right back out and into peoples arms, thats not true everywhere because they just dont have the infrastructure.
PUNE, India India is preparing to launch one of the most ambitious and complex nationwide campaigns in its history: the rollout of coronavirus vaccines to 1.3 billion people, an undertaking that will stretch from the perilous reaches of the Himalayas to the dense jungles of the countrys southern tip.
The toughest part might be persuading doubters like Shankar Patil to roll up their sleeves.
Mr. Patil, a 27-year-old applicant to the state police academy, lives in Pune, the city central to Indias vaccine rollout, which is set to begin on Saturday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is staking his pride on Indias ability to manufacture enough inexpensive shots to inoculate his country as well as much of the developing world. India aims to do nothing less than protect humanity, Mr. Modi said recently at an online address to the Indian diaspora.
Mr. Patil has questions. He and two friends, also aspiring police officers, expressed skepticism about the countrys vaccine approval process, which has been criticized by health experts for a lack of disclosure.
We believe in the government, but nobody should play with our health, Mr. Patil said. If the vaccines are truly safe, they should make the data public.
Little data has been published from the early trials of one of the two vaccines being rolled out, and the manufacturer has not yet completed its final trial, even as it is being distributed.
Doubts about transparency only add to the obstacles. In addition to the logistical challenges, Indian officials must deal with a growing sense of complacency. After reaching a peak in the mid-September of more than 90,000 new cases per day, Indias official infection rates have dropped sharply. Fatalities have fallen by about 30 percent in the last 14 days, according to a New York Times database.
City streets are buzzing. Air and train travel have resumed. Social distancing and mask-wearing standards, already lax in many parts of India, have slipped further. That alarms experts, who say the real infection rate is probably much worse than official numbers suggest.
And doubts about the effectiveness of the vaccines are making the mission harder still.
At least one state, Chhattisgarh, has refused to accept shipments of the vaccine that is still in its final trial. And just days ago, one of Indias top virologists was still weighing whether to receive a jab.
Its really not a lack of confidence in the vaccine, Dr. Gagandeep Kang said. Its a lack of confidence in a process that allowed the vaccine to move forward in such a way. If my taking the vaccine would convince other people to take the vaccine, Id think thats not right.
BRUSSELS Pfizer plans to halt production of its coronavirus vaccine for weeks as it undertakes upgrades to its manufacturing plant in Puurs, Belgium, in order to reach its goal of producing two billion doses this year up from its earlier goal of 1.3 billion.
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Covid-19 Live Updates: Over Two Million Around the World Have Died From the Virus - The New York Times
