An informed guide to the pandemic, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment. |
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Several states with surpluses are now telling the federal government to cut back on their future allotments. North Carolina, for example, reduced its deliveries by 40 percent last week. Connecticut asked for just 26 percent of its full supply, and South Carolina requested just 21 percent. On average, providers are administering about two million doses a day, down from a high of 3.38 million on April 13. |
 | | New doses per day in the U.S.The New York Times |
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Public health experts are concerned that the slowdown will lead to preventable hospitalizations and deaths in communities with lower vaccination rates. |
The opposite phenomenon is taking place in the European Union, which has executed a remarkable turnaround in its immunization campaign. After stalling for months, the bloc has recently shored up a supply issue, and it is now administering about three million doses a day. Adjusted for population, the rate is roughly equivalent to the number of shots given each day in the U.S. |
In areas across the E.U., a more hopeful phase of recovery is beginning to take hold. |
"I enjoy people's company and I know people are ready for me to be hugging again," said Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London. "The first person I'm going to hug is my mum." |
Editor's note: As we head into the next phase of the pandemic, we'll have more coverage of places that are emerging from the pandemic and coming to terms with the new normal. |
Do you miss ... commuting? |
Ridership on New Jersey Transit had been stuck at about 18 percent of prepandemic levels. But in recent weeks, as more people have become vaccinated, there's been a slight uptick to about 25 percent of their normal capacity. |
"Perhaps this signals a gradual return to how things had been," Dan writes, "or, perhaps, it is a harbinger of how things will be, given that many people now feel that they can work just as efficiently from home." |
He can see the country's reopening in the space of one ride — from Maplewood, N.J., to Manhattan in New York. |
 | | With many empty seats, now every car is a "quiet car."Bryan Anselm for The New York Times |
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As the train moved eastward, I gazed through the clouded window at the rolling panorama of nearly imperceptible damage. A recently closed movie theater. A parking lot packed with yellow school buses. The many, many houses and apartment buildings that, for more than a year, have been like miniature prisons. |
Still, here and there, I saw hope. A man laying down the white lines for the boundaries of a soccer field. Moderate traffic moving along Interstate 280. White-helmeted construction workers attending to some repair. |
The train slithered past a small homeless encampment along the Passaic River in Newark; past the hay-colored swamps of the Meadowlands; past two people waiting for a connection at the Secaucus Junction station. Then it whooshed into a tunnel under Weehawken to begin its routine, extraordinary journey beneath the Hudson River. |
The world beyond the train went dark. The air pressure changed. Cell service ended. For a few moments we existed in that in-between space — between then and now, here and there — before the lights of subterranean Manhattan, our destination, appeared. |
The train pulled up beside its assigned platform. A disembodied voice told us to collect our belongings. And the doors opened with a sound like an exhalation. |
 | | The New Jersey Transit platform in Maplewood, N.J.Bryan Anselm for The New York Times |
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What else we're following |
- A potentially fatal fungal infection, mucormycosis, is emerging among Covid patients in India, perhaps because so many families are being forced to use oxygen therapy at home without proper hygiene protocols.
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During this pandemic, my mom was hospitalized for two strokes, a heart attack and a broken hip. We were not able to visit the hospital and had only outside, no-contact visits at the skilled nursing center where she recovered each time. On her most recent trip to the skilled nursing center, we finally had the opportunity to hug because we had both been vaccinated. There is nothing more precious than holding your elderly mother and celebrating that we have both survived this pandemic. Tears flowed from both our eyes. It is these precious moments we honor and celebrate. They are even more special. — Jacki L. Fischer, Kent, Wash. |
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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