Coronavirus Briefing: Vaccine follies

The vaccination campaign in the U.S. is picking up its pace. But there are hiccups.

View in browser|nytimes.com January 28, 2021 An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment. (Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.) The New York Times By Jonathan Wolfe Two cases of the variant that emerged in South Africa were reported in the U.S. for the first time. President Biden signed orders aimed at expanding health care access and opening Obamacare enrollment. China canceled Lunar New Year celebrations for millions of migrants. Get the latest updates here, as well as maps and vaccines in development. Vaccination follies The vaccination campaign in the United States has steadily managed to pick up its pace, and around 1.2 million Americans are now being inoculated each day. But there are hiccups. At a time of widespread frustration over the troubled start to the campaign, episodes of ineptitude, selfishness and greed are drawing attention. While they may be few and far between, they give a glimpse into the behavior of some during the greatest health crisis in a century. In Philadelphia this week, a plan to distribute vaccines went awry after the city used an organization called Philly Fighting Covid — which describes itself as a group of "college kids" and was founded last year by a 22-year-old graduate student — to run the state's largest inoculation site. The city eventually severed ties with the group after it moved to switch from nonprofit status to a for-profit company and changed its data privacy policy to allow it to potentially sell data about patients, and after allegations surfaced that the CEO pocketed vaccine doses and 18- and 19-year-olds were vaccinating one another without supervision. In Houston, the focus of vaccine outrage has been on the still-unfinished story of Dr. Hasan Gokal. He was accused last week of stealing a vial of coronavirus vaccine from a public inoculation site he was supervising, and was fired and charged with a misdemeanor. Dr. Gokal's lawyer told The Houston Chronicle that his client noticed that a vial was left over at the end of the day and was going to spoil in a few hours. Rather than let the doses go to waste, he said Dr. Gokal administered doses to eligible people, including his wife. (A Texas judge dismissed the theft charge on Monday, but the county's top prosecutor said the case would most likely be presented to a grand jury.) Not all of the stories of vaccine flubs are frustrating — some are even heartwarming. When public health workers found themselves stuck in a snowstorm on an Oregon highway this week, with six doses of the Moderna vaccine set to expire, they began walking from car to car, asking stranded drivers if they wanted to be vaccinated on the spot. Most drivers laughed and declined the doses, but six people eventually signed up for a shot. "We had one individual who was so happy, he took his shirt off and jumped out of the car," said Michael Weber, the public health director in Josephine County, Ore. He called it "one of the coolest operations" he had ever been a part of. "Our No. 1 rule right now," he added, "is nothing gets wasted." The site of the impromptu roadside vaccination in rural southern Oregon.Josephine County Public Health Department, via Twitter A stronger-than-expected economic recovery At the end of last year, as coronavirus cases surged and expired government aid forced businesses to close and households to rein in spending, some economists believed the economic recovery was about to take a turn for the worse. But according to data released by the Commerce Department today, the recovery stumbled, but didn't collapse at the end of last year. Gross domestic product rose by 1 percent in the final three months of 2020, a drop from the 7.5 percent growth rate of the previous quarter, but still better than what many economists feared. Four weeks into 2021, the new year looks even better. Aid passed by Congress in December boosted unemployment benefits, sent direct payments to households and propped up small businesses with loans. Democratic control of the Senate makes more assistance likely. It's hard to overstate how important the vaccine rollout is to speeding up the economic recovery, promising the return of customers to hotels, bars and other businesses that were devastated by the pandemic. Nela Richardson, chief economist at the payroll processing firm ADP, put it this way: "Fiscal stimulus is helping push the train of the economy through the tunnel, and the light on the other side is widespread vaccination and inoculation." Resurgences The New York attorney general accused the Cuomo administration of undercounting coronavirus-related deaths at nursing homes by as much as 50 percent. Vietnam reported 82 coronavirus infections, the first cases of local transmission in nearly two months, and the government said that some may be connected to the new variant that has been spreading rapidly in Britain. President John Magufuli of Tanzania, speaking to a large, unmasked crowd in the country's northwest, discouraged the Ministry of Health from pursuing vaccine doses, saying "vaccines don't work." Here's a roundup of restrictions in all 50 states. What else we're following New studies suggest that Covid-19 can provoke the production of antibodies that mistakenly attack a patient's own tissues instead of the virus. As vaccine supplies lag in the European Union, early rollout problems have snowballed into a full-blown crisis. A German health body advised against using the AstraZeneca shot in people over 65, saying there was not enough evidence to assess the vaccine's effectiveness in that population. A C.D.C. study in 17 rural schools in Wisconsin found little in-school transmission. Inside the White House, strict rules on how many people can gather in a room, and for how long, aim to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The Time's Well section set out to answer every possible question you may have about the vaccine. You can read the answers here. What you're doing We are focusing on gratitude, and following C.D.C. guidelines and not traveling. We canceled Thanksgiving and Christmas and are planning a "Springmas" for late April when all of the adult children will come visit. We will decorate the tree, hang stockings, open presents and cherish our health. — Teri McKenn, Hailey, Idaho Let us know how you're dealing with the pandemic. Send us a response here, and we may feature it in an upcoming newsletter. 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