Canada confronts a surge of new cases and vaccine envy.
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Workers in India are fleeing large cities as the country logs 200,000 daily infections.
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Puerto Rico is reporting a sharp rise in new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations amid a lagging vaccine rollout.
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France reported its 100,000th Covid-19 death as a nationwide lockdown continues.
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Get the latest updates here, as well as maps and vaccines in development.
Canada stumbles
Canada has gone through a few waves of the coronavirus, but compared with its neighbor to the south, the country has largely managed to keep its outbreak under control.
However, a new surge of cases, driven largely by the B.1.1.7 variant, has pushed the number of new cases per capita in Canada higher than in the U.S. for the first time. Restrictions have been reimposed in many provinces, with a nightly curfew in parts of Quebec, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing renewed political attacks for the country’s slow vaccination rate.
For insight, I spoke to Ian Austen, a Canada correspondent for The Times.
How is the latest surge playing out?
In Ontario, which is the province with most of the current virus growth, I.C.U.s are getting overloaded. Children’s hospitals in the province adjusted so that adult patients can be sent into their I.C.U.s. In provinces like Alberta, where there is a vocal anti-vaccination and anti-mask movement, it’s not going very well, either.
Why is this surge happening?
It’s been a combination of things. One is the ability of the variants to spread more easily. In a more recent development, schools, which have generally been open for some time in most of Canada, seem to increasingly be a bit of a vector.
How is the vaccine rollout going?
I think there’s a lot of vaccine envy among Canadians as they look to the United States. Canadians are obsessed with Our World in Data, from Oxford, which ranks countries by vaccinations; it’s sort of like looking at sports scores here. And Canada on that list is way behind the United States. It’s ranged from 30-something to 50-something in the world at times, often well behind less developed countries. Still, Canada is actually not that much different from a lot of parts of Europe, which is to say, not very far along.
Why is the rollout so slow?
Canada has no vaccine production capacity — so it’s a pure purchaser. It was always clear that the first quarter of this year was going to be on the lean side when it came to doses, which has led to the “Canadian solution.”
What’s that?
Most Canadians will have to wait for months between doses. So for example, I got my first Pfizer dose on Thursday, and I will get my second one in four months. The decision was made that it was better to give as many people one dose — with some level of protection — than to give half that number of people two doses.
How are Canadians feeling about the next few months?
I think people are very worried. There’s also a lot of impatience and anger about the speed at which the vaccine is being delivered. The more people get vaccinated in Britain, the more people get vaccinated in the United States, the more frustration there will be in Canada. But I think that may start to abate because shipments of vaccine to the country are scheduled to escalate quite dramatically. Even so, the schedule the federal government negotiated with the manufacturers really won’t see the largest number of vaccines arriving until the summer.
Hope for the immunocompromised
For millions of immunocompromised people, coronavirus vaccines are not an option. Diseases or therapies have wiped out their immune cells, and their bodies cannot learn to deploy immune fighters against the virus. If they do become infected, they may suffer prolonged illness, with death rates as high as 55 percent.
Their safest plan of action during the pandemic has been to seal themselves off from the world until the virus retreats. However, scientists are testing another approach: monoclonal antibody treatments.
Patients may be able to receive regular infusions of monoclonal antibodies, which are mass-produced copies of antibodies obtained from people who have recovered from Covid-19, as a way to prevent infection. Convalescent plasma or gamma globulin — antibodies distilled from the blood of healthy donors — may also help, but doctors who specialize in treating immunocompromised people expect at least some of their patients to become infected even with treatment, or encounter other difficulties.
Vaccine rollout
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Hong Kong said that the city’s Covid-19 vaccination program, which has been hampered by low participation rates, would be expanded to include residents as young as 16.
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Iran, the worst-hit country in the Middle East, ordered 60 million doses of the Russian vaccine, Sputnik V, according to IRNA, the state-run news agency.
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In the U.S., Stanford began a trial of the Pfizer vaccine in children ages 2 to 5, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
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Moderna’s chief executive told CNBC that the company hoped to have a booster shot ready by the fall.
What else we’re following
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Three top federal health officials appeared on Capitol Hill and implored Americans to get vaccinated, but said little about the investigation into whether the Johnson & Johnson vaccine may be linked to a small number of cases of rare blood clots.
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The Covax initiative is trying to raise an additional $2 billion to lock up vaccines in advance for lower-income countries.
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Scientists agree that so far there is no evidence that coronavirus tests are failing to detect the known variants of concern.
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In a new poll two-thirds of Democrats reported having had at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, while two-fifths of Republicans said they did not plan to be inoculated.
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The most popular post about the Johnson and Johnson vaccine on Facebook is from a conspiracy theorist who thinks the pandemic is part of a plot for government control, NPR reports.
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The Associated Press explains why more lockdowns are unlikely, even as top health officials have suggested that states experiencing spikes should shut down.
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In the Times Opinion section, a professor of medical ethics and two researchers argue that the government should mandate vaccines for some people, including health care workers, students and some frontline workers.
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Here’s a look at how the pandemic changed what we wore around the world, from India to Italy.
What you’re doing
I’ve suffered from depression for years and it’s only gotten worse since I contracted Covid in December. Prepandemic, it took a long time to accept my “new normal” of living in a gray zone and trudging through mental sludge. The addition of long-hauler symptoms have made my days unbearable. Between the constant headaches, and exacerbated brain fog and fatigue I feel like a fraction of my former self. I try to keep a positive attitude around others, but it’s hard to maintain when I can’t even keep up a simple conversation without forgetting what was said every five seconds. Even writing this has taken a considerable amount of time and has left me exhausted. I’m so scared if this is my new normal.
— Connie F., Phoenix
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