Reopenings accelerate despite warnings from officials and health experts.
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Jill Biden and the U.S. education secretary pushed for school reopenings and shots for teachers.
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New York will ease restrictions on residential and social gatherings later this month and begin to allow more people inside arts and entertainment venues.
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A pipe bomb exploded at a coronavirus testing center in the Netherlands, causing damage but no injuries, the public broadcaster NOS reported.
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Get the latest updates here, as well as maps and vaccines in development.
A nation reopening
States and cities across the United States have been easing virus restrictions in fits and starts since last summer, but over the last few days, the pace of reopenings has accelerated.
South Carolina recently erased limits on large gatherings. Massachusetts now allows restaurants to operate without capacity limits. Mississippi ended its mask mandate. In Chicago, tens of thousands of children returned to public school this week and playgrounds around the city were opened.
Texas, meanwhile, has gone further than any other state or city, and on Tuesday moved to lift its mask requirement and allow all businesses to fully reopen. While Gov. Greg Abbott acknowledged that “Covid has not suddenly disappeared,” he said that state mandates were no longer needed because treatments for Covid-19 are available, the state is able to test widely, and 5.7 million vaccine shots have already been distributed among the population of 29 million.
President Biden’s response today was blunt about the need to give the vaccination campaign more time. “The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything’s fine, take off your mask and forget it,” he told reporters at the White House. “It’s critical, critical, critical, critical that they follow the science. Wash your hands, hot water. Do it frequently, wear a mask and stay socially distanced. And I know you all know that. I wish the heck some of our elected officials knew it.”
Federal officials and health experts have also warned against easing restrictions — as the World Health Organization has on a global level — despite a recent drop in cases. While new U.S. cases are down from their post-holiday peak, they have plateaued at levels similar to the worst days of the summer outbreak. Scientists have also predicted that the variants could usher in a “fourth wave” of cases within the next few weeks in the United States — even if virus restrictions remained in place.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the country was at a pivotal moment when it could either quell the virus through precautions and vaccinations or stoke a new surge of infections.
“So much can turn on the next few weeks,” she said.
I’m vaccinated. Can I skip the mask?
As more and more Americans get vaccinated, many are wondering when they can throw out their masks.
The answer, my colleague Apoorva Mandavilli reports, largely depends on two factors — how quickly Covid rates drop and what percentage of people remain unvaccinated in your community.
Scientists still don’t know if vaccinated people can spread the virus to the unvaccinated. While the vaccines work well in preventing severe illness and death, data is still missing on how well they stop the virus from taking root in an immunized person’s nose, where it could be spread to others.
If some previous vaccines are a guide, then we may have to live with masks for a while longer. Inoculations against the flu, rotavirus, polio and pertussis all prevent severe disease, but not infection.
Virus variants are also changing the calculus, since some vaccines are less effective against some of them — and at least one variant discovered in Brazil may be able to reinfect those who recovered from an earlier version of the virus.
Still, early research suggests the vaccines do cut transmission. Experts say that an 80 percent drop in transmissibility might be enough to allow vaccinated people to ditch masks, especially if most of the population is inoculated. But with stubbornly high infection rates across the country, and with only 26.2 million people fully vaccinated and 51.8 million having received a first shot, experts say that those who are immunized must continue to mask.
And finally, how would a stranger be able to trust that an unmasked person had actually been fully vaccinated? (Especially when mask skepticism appears to still be prevalent in some pockets of society.)
Doses by May
President Biden announced on Tuesday that there would be enough doses of the coronavirus vaccine available for the entire adult population in the United States by the end of May. Previously, Mr. Biden had said there would be enough doses by the end of July.
That’s wonderful news, but the newsletter team wondered: What happened to speed up the time frame?
My colleague Sharon LaFraniere, an investigative reporter, told me that the big change is that the White House is now counting the contribution of a third vaccine manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson, which won emergency use authorization from federal regulators last weekend. Before, officials were only counting doses from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
Also, the White House now says it has ensured that Johnson & Johnson will be able to deliver the doses it previously promised by securing an agreement to work 24/7. The Biden administration was also able to draw in Merck & Company to help, although the impact of that may show up later.
The biggest single reason the timeline has moved up, however, is that Moderna and Pfizer have steadily sped up production. Sharon said this was not in reaction to anything the Biden administration did.
“What this actually boils down to is that the Biden administration has set a new benchmark for itself, but it’s not because the administration has suddenly done something to create more doses,” she said. “They are now factoring in Johnson & Johnson, that’s what’s changed. The rest of this is the normal ramp-up of manufacturing.”
Vaccine rollout
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In the U.S., the clamor for hard-to-get vaccines has created armies of anxious people who haunt pharmacies at the end of the day, hoping to receive unused doses that would expire if not administered. Separately, three mass vaccination sites across New York State will begin administering doses overnight.
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North Korea is expected to receive about 1.7 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine by the end of May.
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A pharmaceutical company in India, Bharat Biotech, said that its Covaxin vaccine showed 81 percent efficacy in interim trials.
What else we’re following
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Germany’s leaders are considering extending the country’s 11-week lockdown, which is set to expire next week.
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Corporate executives around the U.S. are wrestling with when and how to reopen offices.
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Reports of new virus cases among health care workers in Los Angeles County have fallen by 94 percent since late November, just before vaccinations began.
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The pandemic is disrupting Australia’s agriculture industry, exposing its shaky labor foundation that relies heavily on the work of young, transient foreigners.
What you’re doing
Got the virus last April. Became a long hauler with (among other symptoms) daily headaches, joint and muscle pains, low-grade fever, confusion, depression, what they call brain fog but is more like brain cyclone, dizziness, and mental and physical exertion intolerance. Had one shot of the Moderna vaccine and the brain fog went away! After second shot, still can get weak and tired more easily than before Covid, but I can think through a sentence and remember why I’m in the room a lot faster than I could a month before. I believe the vaccine set me on the path to recovering from this very long illness.
— Laura Gross, Fort Lee, N.J.
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