Coronavirus vaccines are poised to be approved and distributed in the coming weeks in the United States, but that promising news comes amid record levels of infections and hospitalizations, with experts warning that the most brutal period of the pandemic lies ahead.
This is a split-screen moment: Progress on vaccines means people can now plausibly talk about what they will do when the pandemic is over. But with new infections topping 212,000 Thursday — another daily record, topping one set Wednesday — it won’t be over in a snap. This remains a dismal slog.
“The vaccine has not come in time to do much about the winter wave,” said Christopher Murray, director of the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. “Vaccination is coming too late even if we do a really great job of scale-up. It’s coming too late to do much by March 1, or really by April 1.” Only at that point, he added, will the widespread distribution of vaccines begin to crush the virus. Continue reading.