Good morning. Britain has begun vaccinations. But that matters less in the short term than you may think.
The vaccine as a fire hose
Margaret Keenan became the first patient in Britain to receive the vaccine. It was administered on Tuesday by May Parsons in Coventry, England.Pool photo by Jacob King
But there is still one dark cloud hanging over the vaccines that many people don’t yet understand.
The vaccines will be much less effective at preventing death and illness in 2021 if they are introduced into a population where the coronavirus is raging — as is now the case in the U.S. That’s the central argument of a new paper in the journal Health Affairs. (One of the authors is Dr. Rochelle Walensky of Massachusetts General Hospital, whom President-elect Joe Biden has chosen to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)
An analogy may be helpful here. A vaccine is like a fire hose. A vaccine that’s 95 percent effective, as Moderna’s and Pfizer’s versions appear to be, is a powerful fire hose. But the size of a fire is still a bigger determinant of how much destruction occurs.
I asked the authors of the Health Affairs study to put their findings into terms that we nonscientists could understand, and they were kind enough to do so. The estimates are fairly stunning:
At the current level of infection in the U.S. (about 200,000 confirmed new infections per day), a vaccine that is 95 percent effective — distributed at the expected pace — would still leave a terrible toll in the six months after it was introduced. Almost 10 million or so Americans would contract the virus, and more than 160,000 would die.
This is far worse than the toll in an alternate universe in which the vaccine was only 50 percent effective but the U.S. had reduced the infection rate to its level in early September (about 35,000 new daily cases). In that scenario, the death toll in the next six months would be kept to about 60,000.
It’s worth pausing for a moment on this comparison, because it’s deeply counterintuitive. If the U.S. had maintained its infection rate from September and Moderna and Pfizer had announced this fall that their vaccines were only 50 percent effective, a lot of people would have freaked out.
But the reality we have is actually worse.
U.S. data, as collected by The New York Times.
How could this be? No vaccine can eliminate a pandemic immediately, just as no fire hose can put out a forest fire. While the vaccine is being distributed, the virus continues to do damage. “Bluntly stated, we’ll get out of this pandemic faster if we give the vaccine less work to do,” A. David Paltiel, one of the Health Affairs authors and a professor at the Yale School of Public Health, told me.
There is one positive way to look at this: Measures that reduce the virus’s spread — like mask-wearing, social distancing and rapid-result testing — can still have profound consequences. They can save more than 100,000 lives in coming months.
THE LATEST NEWS
THE VIRUS
A funeral home in El Paso this month.Paul Ratje/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
In the past seven days, 15,813 people in the U.S. died from the virus, breaking a record that had stood since mid-April.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said New York would restrict indoor dining if hospitalization rates didn’t stabilize. New York City could lose indoor dining as soon as Monday.
Once Pfizer delivers its first 100 million vaccine doses to the U.S., the country may not get another batch until June. That’s because the Trump administration passed on a deal last summer to secure more shots, and the European Union bought them.
THE PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION
Lloyd Austin would be the first African-American to lead the Pentagon.Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
Biden plans to nominate Lloyd Austin, a retired Army general and former commander of the American military effort in Iraq, to be the defense secretary.
President Trump twice called the Republican speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to encourage challenges to the election results. Trump has made repeated false claims about voter fraud, in an effort to remain in office despite losing the election.
Nearly 1,500 former federal prosecutors and other lawyers signed an open letter calling for bar associations to investigate members of Trump’s legal team for advancing those false claims. “A license to practice law is not a license to lie to the public,” they wrote.
Georgia election officials will open just five early voting locations in Cobb County, outside Atlanta, for the Senate runoff elections, down from 11 for the general election. Republicans control Cobb County, which Biden won by 14 percentage points.
OTHER BIG STORIES
The Environmental Protection Agency declined to strengthen controls on industrial soot emissions. The move defies scientific research, including from the agency’s own public health experts, about the links between the pollutants and respiratory illness.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain said he would travel to Brussels this week, taking control of efforts to strike a trade deal with the European Union before a Dec. 31 deadline.
MSNBC promoted Rashida Jones, an executive at the network, to become its next president, making her the first Black woman to take charge of a major television news network.
Chuck Yeager — the first pilot to break the sound barrier and a central figure in the book “The Right Stuff” — died on Monday at age 97.
Paul Sarbanes, a former senator from Maryland, died at 87 on Sunday. He introduced the first article of impeachment against Richard Nixon and, decades later, helped write legislation strengthening accounting standards after the Enron scandal.
The Puerto Rican rapper and singer Bad Bunny’s latest album, “El Último Tour del Mundo,” is the first LP entirely in Spanish to top the Billboard 200 album chart.
MORNING READS
Western Hemlocks and Pacific Red Cedar.Brendan George Ko for The New York Times
The social life of forests: Do trees communicate and cooperate with one another? It appears so. Read the story in the Magazine, or listen to it on a special episode of “The Daily.”
A debate: One former head of Medicare calls Xavier Becerra “a great fit” to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, The Washington Post reports. In his Times Opinion column, Ross Douthat says the nomination is a warning sign that Biden will abandon the moderate approach that offers his best chance for political success.
Lives Lived: As a pro wrestler, Pat Patterson knew how to delight fans. As an executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, he introduced the Royal Rumble, a last-man-standing free-for-all that has been popular ever since. When he announced in 2014 that he was gay, Patterson’s fans remained loyal. He died at 79.
Bob Dylan performing in Los Angeles in 2012.Chris Pizzello/Associated Press
The Rights They Are A-Sold
Bob Dylan has sold his catalog of more than 600 songs to Universal Music for an estimated $300 million. It may be the biggest acquisition of one songwriter’s publishing rights, and it’s another landmark for Dylan, who in 2016 won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Universal will now collect fees any time Dylan’s songs are sold, streamed, covered by another musician or used in ads and movies. That makes Dylan’s catalog especially lucrative: Other artists have recorded his songs more than 6,000 times, and they have appeared often in movies, including “The Big Lebowski” and “Bad Santa 2.”
The deal is the latest in a string of such purchases: In October the DJ Calvin Harris sold his publishing catalog for an estimated $100 million, and last week the singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks sold a majority stake of her catalog for an estimated $80 million.
As streaming comes to dominate the music market, more investors are snapping up music copyrights. “Streaming has changed the landscape, from a licensing and royalty perspective,” one expert told The Washington Post. “Even though there’s eye-popping price tags, if you look at the returns in five, 10, or 20 years, these are viewed as very good investments.”
PLAY, WATCH, EAT
WHAT TO COOK
David Malosh for The New York Times
Packed with apple, sausage and mustard, this lentil soup makes for a hearty weeknight meal.
New York Magazine has done something different with its annual “Reasons to Love New York” issue: It pays tribute to 500 places that have shut down since the pandemic began.
AWARDS SEASON?
Welcome to “The Quarries” — Vulture’s first (and ideally, last) list dedicated to the cultural works that shaped a year spent in isolation.
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David
P.S. Marc Lacey, The Times’s national editor, will be the new assistant managing editor for Live, where he will lead a team focused on briefings, blogs and chats.
Today’s episode of “The Daily” is about Trump’s immigration legacy. On the latest “Sway,” Kara Swisher interviews the chief executive of Cameo, the marketplace for personalized celebrity shout-outs.
Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.
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Thank you for subscribing to my e-newsletter; to receive issue-specific newsletters, in addition to my weekly update, click here. Also, please remember to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube for regular updates on how I am serving the people of South Carolina
OZ Virtual Tours
Last Week, I launched my Nationwide Virtual Opportunity Zones (OZ) Tour, beginning in our great state of South Carolina. Opportunity Zones allow the governors of each state to designate economically distressed communities and give private companies a tax incentive to shift the economic future of the community.
This first Virtual Tour takes a look at an agricultural facility in Hampton County and the 1,500 high-paying jobs that it will create for the community within the next couple of years. We are excited about the future of Hampton County and the future of all of the other Opportunity Zones around the country. Stay tuned for more Virtual Opportunity Zone Tours!
Telehealth
I am proud of the strides that we have made in health care, but many people in the country still lack access to the care that they need. While telehealth and virtual health technology more broadly have long helped Americans in some medically underserved communities to receive potentially life-saving services, the COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the urgency of telehealth access. Thanks to emergency flexibilities created in the CARES Act and granted by the Administration, seniors have enjoyed unprecedented access to telehealth services, limiting their exposure to viral infection and allowing providers across the country to serve broader communities. This is why I, along with a bipartisan group of 49 lawmakers, have joined together to ensure that these benefits do not go away when the pandemic is finished.
If you are interested in learning more about healthcare or technology and connectivity, sign up for my newsletter here
Main Street Entrepreneurs
Last week, Sen. Coons, Rep. Crow, and I introduced the Next Generation Entrepreneur Corps Act. This bill will help to create new jobs in underserved areas by creating a competitive fellowship opportunity for local entrepreneurs. With hundreds of thousands of small businesses closing, this legislation is important for helping communities to grow and accelerating the ongoing economic recovery.
This bill will provide mentorship and networking opportunities, health care and student loan support, and access to capital to spur business growth. Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, and I will continue to look for ways to encourage small business creation in developing communities.
Zooming Around South Carolina
Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to speak with C12, an international Christian CEO roundtable organization, about what it means to be a Christian in business and politics. I spoke about the importance of mentors, being a person of faith, and opportunities for growth in our great state.
Friday, I chatted with Ten at the Top South Carolina about COVID-19, Opportunity Zones, and relief for small businesses. The Ten at the Top have been hard at work for the past 15 years to help the Upstate grow through entrepreneurial development, sustainable changes, and robust public-private partnerships.
Sincerely,
Lowcountry 2500 City Hall Lane 3rd Floor Suite North Charleston, SC 29406 Phone: (843) 727-4525 Fax: (855) 802-9355
Midlands 1901 Main Street Suite 1425 Columbia, SC 29201 Phone: (803) 771-6112 Fax: (855) 802-9355
Upstate 104 South Main Street Suite 803 Greenville, SC 29601 Phone: (864) 233-5366 Fax: (855) 802-9355
Washington, DC 104 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Phone: (202) 224-6121 Toll Free: (855) 425-6324 Fax: (202) 228-5143
Speaking on Fox's America's Newsroom on December 1, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) questioned the effectiveness of mask mandates and broad lockdowns such as school closing mandates as reasonable responses to the coronavirus pandemic.
"We have mask mandates in dozens of states and countries and … without fail, every time we've instituted a mandate the actual incidence of the disease has risen. So there is no evidence that these mandates are working and we're crippling the economy. Maybe we ought to reassess what we're doing," Paul said during his interview with Sandra Smith.
Elaborating further, Paul said: "I think there are reasonable things you can do in school. For the small children, I wouldn't have them wearing masks. I don't think it makes any difference. We ought to reassess what we're doing on this."
Senator Paul objected to the school-closing mandate due to the fact that children are "poor transmitters" of the coronavirus. Paul also said that mask mandates "illustrate the danger of centralizing power and decision making in one person or in Washington" considering when they have been "so wrong as Dr. Fauci has been."
Dr. Anthony Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as well as one of the most visible (former) members of the Trump administration's White House Coronavirus Task Force.
Paul, who is an ophthalmologist and a graduate of the Duke University School of Medicine, said, "Trying to take precautions is reasonable. But there are now people saying — Dr. Fauci included — when we have a vaccine, you will still have to wear a mask."
"People do need to push back. I'm one of those who are immune and keep pushing back. 13 million Americans have had this. We don't need to tell them they have to wear a mask. Immunity is working. It is working as well as a vaccine. When we get the vaccine hopefully we can all be free of these encumbrances."
Paul concluded by saying,
It's the same people who predicted that millions and millions of people would die from this. They've been wrong at every turn. Their models only work when they continue to adjust them with reality. But they never have been accurate from the very beginning. It turns out that this is a terrible, difficult disease for the elderly…. And for the kids — this is the truth — it actually is less deadly than the seasonal flu for children. And we should acknowledge that this is a disease that is different depending on your age group and in a free society everybody should be able to analyze the data and make their own decisions.
During the early days of the pandemic, Dr. Fauci urged local school districts to take a very cautious approach to allowing children and teachers to return to classrooms.
However, on September 29, speaking on ABC's This Week, Fauci walked back his position considerably, stating,
The default position should be to try as best as possible, within reason, to keep the children in school, to get them back to school. If you look at the data, the spread among children and from children is not very big at all, not like one would have suspected. So let's try to get the kids back. But let's try to mitigate the things that maintain and push the kind of community spread we are trying to avoid. And those are the things you know well. The bars, the restaurants … those are the things that drive the community spread. Not the schools.
Paul has often taken exception to Dr. Fauci's warnings, including at a Senate hearing in late June and in other communications. His latest such statement was in a September 29 tweet in which he suggested that Fauci apologize for his warnings about the danger the coronavirus poses to school-age children.
After one of Paul's Twitter followers tweeted, "Dr Fauci owes @RandPaul an apology," in response to Fauci's apparent reversal of his previous overly cautious stand against educating children in schoolrooms, Senator Paul tweeted: "No, he owes one to every single parent and school-age child in America. I told him this multiple times this summer."
Speaking on Fox's America's Newsroom on December 1, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) questioned the effectiveness of mask mandates and broad lockdowns such as school closing mandates as reasonable responses to the coronavirus pandemic.
"We have mask mandates in dozens of states and countries and … without fail, every time we've instituted a mandate the actual incidence of the disease has risen. So there is no evidence that these mandates are working and we're crippling the economy. Maybe we ought to reassess what we're doing," Paul said during his interview with Sandra Smith.
Elaborating further, Paul said: "I think there are reasonable things you can do in school. For the small children, I wouldn't have them wearing masks. I don't think it makes any difference. We ought to reassess what we're doing on this."
Senator Paul objected to the school-closing mandate due to the fact that children are "poor transmitters" of the coronavirus. Paul also said that mask mandates "illustrate the danger of centralizing power and decision making in one person or in Washington" considering when they have been "so wrong as Dr. Fauci has been."
Dr. Anthony Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as well as one of the most visible (former) members of the Trump administration's White House Coronavirus Task Force.
Paul, who is an ophthalmologist and a graduate of the Duke University School of Medicine, said, "Trying to take precautions is reasonable. But there are now people saying — Dr. Fauci included — when we have a vaccine, you will still have to wear a mask."
"People do need to push back. I'm one of those who are immune and keep pushing back. 13 million Americans have had this. We don't need to tell them they have to wear a mask. Immunity is working. It is working as well as a vaccine. When we get the vaccine hopefully we can all be free of these encumbrances."
Paul concluded by saying,
It's the same people who predicted that millions and millions of people would die from this. They've been wrong at every turn. Their models only work when they continue to adjust them with reality. But they never have been accurate from the very beginning. It turns out that this is a terrible, difficult disease for the elderly…. And for the kids — this is the truth — it actually is less deadly than the seasonal flu for children. And we should acknowledge that this is a disease that is different depending on your age group and in a free society everybody should be able to analyze the data and make their own decisions.
During the early days of the pandemic, Dr. Fauci urged local school districts to take a very cautious approach to allowing children and teachers to return to classrooms.
However, on September 29, speaking on ABC's This Week, Fauci walked back his position considerably, stating,
The default position should be to try as best as possible, within reason, to keep the children in school, to get them back to school. If you look at the data, the spread among children and from children is not very big at all, not like one would have suspected. So let's try to get the kids back. But let's try to mitigate the things that maintain and push the kind of community spread we are trying to avoid. And those are the things you know well. The bars, the restaurants … those are the things that drive the community spread. Not the schools.
Paul has often taken exception to Dr. Fauci's warnings, including at a Senate hearing in late June and in other communications. His latest such statement was in a September 29 tweet in which he suggested that Fauci apologize for his warnings about the danger the coronavirus poses to school-age children.
After one of Paul's Twitter followers tweeted, "Dr Fauci owes @RandPaul an apology," in response to Fauci's apparent reversal of his previous overly cautious stand against educating children in schoolrooms, Senator Paul tweeted: "No, he owes one to every single parent and school-age child in America. I told him this multiple times this summer."
You know that old phrase, "everything that could go wrong went wrong..."
Well, that sums up my day yesterday pretty well...which is why I'm emailing you again this morning.
I know yesterday your inbox was probably flooded with donation requests for national #GivingTuesday, as it's a huge day for most non-for-profit organizations as it literally determines hiring and programming decisions for the upcoming year.
And, yesterday, I was counting on a lot of support to come in to help our team at the Frederick Douglass Foundation (FDF) to meet an ambitious $30,000 #GivingTuesday Matching Grant Challenge... which would give us $60,000 to run head-first into the our "Save the Senate" Georgia run-off door-knocking campaign.
But yesterday was a challenge both for me personally and our team at FDF where so many little things went wrong, including annual maintenance that we didn't know was happening. This resulted in our website being taken offline for several hours while dozens of folks were trying to make donations to be DOUBLED.
As a result, we didn't meet our $30,000 Matching Challenge.
But we can TODAY as I just got off the phone with our supporter in Georgia who generously offered the $30,000 Match, and he's agreed to extend the deadline for TODAY ONLY!!
As you know, we need to knock on every single door we can between now and Tuesday, January 5th to ensure we can have a firewall in the U.S. Senate to block the most extreme aspects of the Biden-Harris-Pelosi agenda that very well may flood Washington, D.C. next month.
Robert, I'm talking about tax-payer funded abortions up until birth, severe financial and civil punishments for business owners who refuse to violate their faith, endless investigations into the last 4 years of President Trump's administration, and a complete overhaul of our already-taxed healthcare system that will result in long delays and rationing of care for the most vulnerable.
And this list goes on and on...
In 2021, I know we will face an uphill battle, but our team has never been more ready with trained leaders and volunteers in states across America…and this is all thanks to you.
For Him,
Rev. Dean Nelson Chairman, Frederick Douglass Foundation
P.S. – We have graciously received an extension on our #GivingTuesday $30,000 Matching Challenge. Can you donate now to ensure your donation is DOUBLED? If you give $25 or more, you'll even receive a $5, $10, or $15 OFF Gift Card to our Frederick Douglass-themed store!