Coronavirus Briefing: What Happened Today

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/us/coronavirus-briefing-what-happened-today.html

Version 0 of 1.

This is the Coronavirus Briefing, an informed guide to the pandemic. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson closed schools and declared a strict national lockdown in England in an attempt to contain a more contagious variant.

A pharmacist at a Wisconsin hospital, an “admitted conspiracy theorist,” destroyed 500 doses of coronavirus vaccine because he thought they weren’t safe, police said.

India approved a locally made vaccine, as well as one made by Oxford-AstraZeneca, for emergency use.

In the United States, over 20.7 million people have tested positive and at least 352,397 have died. Get the latest updates here, as well as maps and news on vaccines in development.

In the week since our last newsletter, U.S. distribution of coronavirus vaccines has descended into turmoil. Now, millions of vaccines could expire before they reach people in need.

The Trump administration predicted 20 million people would receive at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by the end of 2020. The final figure was about four million. And only 365,294 people in nursing homes and long-term-care centers have been vaccinated, despite more than 2.5 million doses distributed for those facilities, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

Critics say the U.S. government has mismanaged the rollout from top to bottom. Federal, state, and local officials blamed each other for botched logistics and funding shortfalls.

State officials — struggling to handle outbreaks, mass testing campaigns, overflowing intensive care units and uncertain contact tracing — say they need more help from the federal government. And local governments are chafing at state restrictions.

In New York City, only 110,000 people have received a vaccine dose — about a quarter of the total number received by the city. Mayor Bill de Blasio called on the state government — which has limited vaccinations to health care workers and those living and working at nursing homes — to allow older people and essential workers to receive the vaccine.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo asserted that the problem was a local issue, and urging Mr. de Blasio and other local leaders to take “personal responsibility” for their performance. Mr. Cuomo also threatened to fine hospitals if they did not step up the vaccination rate.

The $900 billion federal pandemic relief package will provide an additional $9 billion toward vaccination costs. But funds will arrive long after local health departments have started vaccinating residents. Slowdowns touch almost every part of the country.

In Puerto Rico, a shipment of vaccines did not arrive until the workers who would have administered them had left for the Christmas holiday.

In Houston, the city health department’s phone system crashed on the first day of a free vaccination clinic, after receiving more than 250,000 calls.

In Tennessee, older people lined up on a sidewalk, leaning on walkers and wrapping themselves in blankets while they waited for a county health department to open its free clinic. The clinic exhausted its supply of vaccine before 10 a.m.

In Florida, vaccine rollout sites continue to be overwhelmed in some places, with people waiting for hours. Gov. Ron DeSantis said hospitals may have future supplies of coronavirus vaccine reduced if they do not administer doses quickly enough.

The U.S. is not alone: The Netherlands and France are just two of several countries that have been slow to roll out vaccinations. But the level of disorder in the U.S., as with the virus’s toll, seems unique.

You can follow the U.S. rollout with our vaccine tracker.

In today’s issue of The Morning newsletter, my colleague David Leonhardt explained the new variant in one simple, frightening chart. He compared the spread of the virus in Britain and South Africa, the countries that first detected the new variant, with the spread in a group of nearby countries.

More than 30 other countries, including the U.S., have diagnosed cases with the variant, which appears to be between 10 percent and 60 percent more transmissible than the original version. It could soon become the dominant form of the virus.

The new variant may end up “exacerbating an unrelenting rise in deaths and overwhelming the already strained health care system,” my colleague Apoorva Mandavilli wrote last week.

An outbreak at a convent near Albany, N.Y., has infected nearly half of its roughly 100 residents. Nine sisters, all older than 80, died of Covid-19 in December.

California’s prison system, which has been exceptionally hard-hit by the coronavirus, has started vaccinating some inmates — but none so far at the 25 prisons that have been most overwhelmed by infections.

Thailand, which has been one of the most successful countries in containing the coronavirus, imposed wide-ranging new measures on Monday as infections hit a new daily high of 745.

Japanese officials considered declaring a state of emergency in Tokyo for the first time since April. Authorities on Monday requested that restaurants and bars close by 8 p.m. to prevent further spread of the virus.

South Korea will extend restrictions in and around Seoul until Jan. 17.

Zimbabwe will shutter nonessential businesses for a month and extend a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, its information secretary said on Saturday.

Here’s a roundup of restrictions in all 50 states.

The sustained loss of smell and taste among some Covid-19 survivors is receiving new attention from scientists, who fear it may affect nutrition and mental health.

Americans have fled their local lockdowns for Mexico City, where coronavirus restrictions have been more relaxed. But hospitals in the Mexican capital are overwhelmed, and cases of Covid-19 are surging.

Pope Francis criticized people who traveled abroad to sidestep pandemic lockdowns, saying they were ignoring those who were suffering.

Struggling substance-abuse centers are shutting down or relying on virtual programming. People who struggle with dependence have started relapsing.

The N.C.A.A. intends to hold its men’s basketball tournament entirely in Indiana in March and early April, in an effort to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

A 60-year-old Virginia state senator, Ben Chafin, died from complications of Covid-19.

Israel has distributed the first of two doses to more than 10 percent of its population, in an unusually successful vaccination campaign. The effort has not extended to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Authority does not appear to have publicly requested vaccine doses.

“Coronavirus will not kill the office,” wrote Dror Poleg in The Times. “If anything, it figures to be more dynamic than ever.”

Let us know how you’re dealing with the pandemic. Send us a response here, and we may feature it in an upcoming newsletter.