# data[].attributes.headline
Addressing the misconceptions around Covid 19 variants

# data[].attributes.subject
Addressing the misconceptions around Covid 19 variants

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Addressing the misconceptions around COVID-19 variants, including Omicron | 7.30

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Coronavirus: How to Teach Kids About COVID-19 | BrainPOP

# data[].attributes.headline
How the Pandemic Changed What Jobs Young People Wnat

# data[].attributes.subject
How the Pandemic Changed What Jobs Young People Wnat

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Work In Progress is a series about how the pandemic changed our perceptions of our jobs and careers.

At the beginning of 2020, Rohit Bolla, then a sophomore at the University of Southern California, was set on a career in management consulting. He had a summer internship lined up at a boutique consulting firm in Washington, D.C., and as a politics, philosophy, and economics major, was following a path it seemed most people in his major were taking - then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. His internship was immediately canceled, and Bolla spent the remainder of his semester in his hometown of Dallas. He didn't know it at the time, but these events were the catalyst for his pursuit of an interest he had always been passionate about but never fully committed to: graphic design.

Whether it was a canceled internship or the unique circumstances presented by remote learning, the pandemic forced many college students and recent graduates to rethink their career plans. Some put more emphasis on financial security while others tapped into interests they previously set to the side. Without the social distractions or campus involvements that often keep college students busy, many found ways to fill their time.

"When I was stuck in my room not doing stuff, I had to entertain myself with my laptop," Bolla told Teen Vogue. "I started getting really interested in the way companies were shifting their entire ad campaigns for the pandemic." Bolla made an Instagram account that chronicles the way popular brands have adjusted their visual identities and provides insight into their brand stories. Bolla's "brand briefs," as he likes to call them, quickly gained traction from companies, and he soon started freelance designing for local nonprofits and organizations on campus. Just months later, Bolla has made himself a one-stop shop for brand design for on-campus initiatives at USC, and his income from freelancing is enough to pay his rent.

However, not everyone has had Bolla's experience. Since the pandemic started, more than 22 million jobs were lost (though some of those have been recovered), pushing concerns surrounding job stability to the forefront of many students' minds. Over four weeks last March, the average daily count of open internships advertised on ZipRecruiter fell by 31%. Some students found themselves suddenly unable to afford college or lost jobs; the same pattern played out for many recent graduates, who were left adrift after being let go from their first jobs and abruptly moving back home. University of Pennsylvania senior Ana Hallman's internship at the Public Defender Service in Washington, D.C., was one of many opportunities that disappeared overnight. Instead, she spent the summer doing social media work for Solitary Watch, an organization that aims to investigate and oppose solitary confinement in the United States. Soon after her remote internship, however, she started to consider working in the private sector as opposed to nonprofits.

Stay up-to-date with the politics team. Sign up for the Teen Vogue Take!

"I used to be very into the idea of becoming a lawyer for some kind of nonprofit group," Hallman told Teen Vogue. "But after the pandemic, I really started shifting gears. Reading articles over the summer about how recovering from the pandemic was going to be so different for people who were in stable jobs, which tend to be corporate, versus people who are not in those jobs, started striking a bit of a chord with me." Now, Hallman is looking for legal jobs in the private sector, not only because she believes they will provide her more stability, but also because working at a big firm still gives her the opportunity to take on pro bono public interest cases.

Other events in a cataclysmic 2020 pushed and pulled college students in new directions. The national Black Lives Matter uprisings prompted Ahmari Anthony, a senior and journalism major at Howard University, to pivot from journalism to social work. Right before the pandemic, Anthony was beginning to narrow in on a career in investigative journalism, due to her long-standing interest in criminal and social justice. The week of George Floyd's death, Anthony attended an investigative reporting workshop. As she read more about the limitations media outlets imposed on how journalists should and shouldn't report on protests, as well as having seen how her local paper removed Black journalists from covering the protests, Anthony began reflecting on other ways she could participate in community-organizing work beyond journalism.

"When Mike Brown was killed, I was in high school, and as [Black Student Union (BSU)] president, I did a lot of stuff to support other Black students in my school," Anthony said. "Anytime there was a racist incident at my school, I was reaching out to the BSU kids, and always trying to do things to support people in the moment. I realized that if that's always what my natural instinct is to do, then why am I not following that, career-wise?"

Over the summer, Anthony poured her time and energy into expanding Just Us, a Black, student-led organization she cofounded three years ago that aims to help detained, committed, and incarcerated youth in the Washington, D.C., area. Before this summer, Anthony always saw community organizing as her side passion, and was under the impression that, eventually, she would have to give up volunteer work, because it would become a conflict of interest for her reporting.

"Over the summer, I just realized that there's a lot of meat in this world now - with climate change, racial injustice, the criminal justice system, and the way that our government really kind of failed a lot of people over the past couple months," Anthony says. "Watching people get sick and die, I felt like it wasn't enough for me to just report on the issues." Now, she is working on applications for social work programs post-graduation.

For other students, their career pivot came as they made the decision to intentionally spend time away from school by taking a gap year. This past fall semester, many colleges continued to operate either completely virtually or through a hybrid model of in-person and virtual classes. Students were forced to consider the downsides of online learning as well as the loss of in-person activities that contribute to the college experience. Weighing these factors, Gavi Welbel, then a sophomore at Yale University, ultimately decided that going back to school this year wasn't worth it, and she wasn't the only one: Only 85% of the total Yale undergraduate population enrolled in the fall. Welbel took a gap year instead and embarked on a project she'd always dreamed about but never found the time for: revitalizing the local farm where her father grew up.

"I saw this opportunity to go and live someplace that would allow me to work outside and do actual work that's not all digital," Welbel told Teen Vogue. "I also wanted to contribute to something that I care a lot about - both on a personal level of actualizing this 40-year-old vision of my dad's and on a bigger-picture level, the environment is something that I'm super passionate about."

The farm, now called Zumwalt Acres, is located in Sheldon, Illinois. Welbel and her twin sister, both natives of nearby Evanston, told a few of her friends who were already on the fence about going back to school about her plan; six of them decided to come with. In August, they all moved to the farm with the mission of advancing regenerative agriculture as an alternative to conventional agriculture and promoting Jewish values. Throughout the semester, the team engaged in agroforestry practices, did research with universities, and created a live-in apprenticeship program for future young farmers. After this experience, Welbel says she is considering switching her second major from urban studies to Earth and planetary sciences. While she can still see herself in a career in urban design and planning, she wants to do it through an environmental lens.

No matter what they end up doing down the line, the circumstances of the pandemic have forced many college students to think about what they value in a career and want to pursue post-grad. "I'm not ready to commit myself to a certain career path just yet," Welbel said, "But I do think that I've realized this year that no matter what I do, I want to be doing something that is rooted in the community."

Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: What a Labor Union Is and How It Works

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How the Pandemic Changed What Jobs Young People Want

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Work In Progress is a series about how the pandemic changed our perceptions of our jobs and careers. At the beginning of 2020, Rohit Bolla, then a sophomore at the University of Southern California, was set on a career in management consulting.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What's behind Taiwan's COVID-19 success story? | DW News

# data[].attributes.headline
Students and Teachers Share Their Stories

# data[].attributes.subject
Students and Teachers Share Their Stories

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
One year into the #COVID19 crisis: Students and teachers share their stories

# data[].attributes.headline
Covid Misinformation is an "Urgent Threat"

# data[].attributes.subject
Covid Misinformation is an "Urgent Threat"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The U.S. Surgeon General Is Calling COVID-19 Misinformation An ‘Urgent Threat’

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The nation’s top doctor, Vivek Murthy, says misinformation will keep sowing mistrust and endangering lives unless all Americans do their part to fight it.

# data[].attributes.headline
US College Enrollment dropped again in the fall, despite the arrival of vaccines

# data[].attributes.subject
US College Enrollment dropped again in the fall, despite the arrival of vaccines

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The enrollment crisis at U.S. institutions of higher learning continued a second year into the pandemic, even as coronavirus vaccines became widely available for students last fall, according to the latest numbers from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Total undergraduate enrollment dropped 3.1 percent from the fall of 2020 to the fall of 2021, bringing the total decline since the fall of 2019 to 6.6 percent - or 1,205,600 students.

"Our final look at fall 2021 enrollment shows undergraduates continuing to sit out in droves as colleges navigate yet another year of Covid-19," said Doug Shapiro, the executive director of the research center, which collects and analyzes data from 3,600 postsecondary institutions.

Even before the pandemic, college enrollment was declining nationally as the number of college-age students leveled off. At the same time, high tuition costs discouraged prospective domestic students, and the highly polarizing immigration debate drove away international students.

That decline then accelerated steeply when Covid-19 forced many classes online and restricted campus life. The economic disruption caused by the pandemic also forced many prospective college students into the workplace.

The new figures show that undergraduate enrollment declined at every type of college, but public two-year colleges remain the hardest-hit, with U.S. community colleges disproportionately hurt.

Tens of thousands of students, many of them low-income, were forced to delay school or drop out because of the pandemic and the economic crisis it has created. The new data showed that enrollment in community colleges was down 13.2 percent, or 706,000 students, compared with 2019.

The number of students seeking associate degrees at four-year institutions also fell, as did the number of students aged 24 and over.

"Without a dramatic re-engagement in their education, the potential loss to these students' earnings and futures is significant, which will greatly impact the nation as a whole in years to come," Mr. Shapiro said in a news release.

There was one bright spot in the data: The enrollment of first-year students stabilized, up about 0.4 percent, or 8,100 students, from 2020 to 2021.

Even so, first-year enrollment is 9.2 percent lower than prepandemic levels in fall 2019.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
U.S. college enrollment dropped again in the fall of 2021, despite the arrival of vaccines.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The enrollment crisis at U.S. institutions of higher learning continued a second year into the pandemic, even as coronavirus vaccines became widely available for students last fall, according to the latest numbers from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
See How Vaccinations Are Going in Your County and State

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
See where doses have gone, and who is eligible for a shot in each state.

# data[].attributes.headline
Hippos, Hyenas, and other Animals are contracting Covid-19

# data[].attributes.subject
Hippos, Hyenas, and other Animals are contracting Covid-19

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ngozi and Kibo, ages 22 and 23, developed a cough, lethargy, and runny noses at home in Colorado in November. Soon it was determined that their run-of-the-mill symptoms were signs of a global first: These Denver Zoo residents became the first hyenas in the world known to be infected with COVID-19.

The milestone, nearly 20 months into the pandemic, is part of a pattern in recent months. On October 6, a binturong ("bearcat") and a fishing cat tested positive at Chicago Zoo, followed a week later by a coati. Two hippos at a zoo in Belgium fell victim on December 5. All were the first of their species to contract the virus.

They're now part of a group of 315 animals from 15 species in the United States confirmed to have SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The list also includes cats, dogs, tigers, lions, snow leopards, gorillas, otters, a cougar, a ferret, white-tailed deer. (Infected mink, nearly all on fur farms, are not included in the total).

What do we know about which animals can get the virus? And what does it mean for them-and us?

Are certain animals more susceptible?

These cases have affected mainly carnivorans. (Carnivorans belong to an order of mammals that includes wild and domestic cats, dogs and wolves, bears, and more. Carnivore is a generic term for any animal that primarily eats meat. Sharks, for example, are carnivores but not carnivorans).

The hyenas, the binturong, the coati, and the fishing cat are all carnivorans, as are domestic and big cats, which have been testing positive since early in the pandemic.

This doesn't necessarily mean carnivorans are more susceptible-there aren't enough data to judge yet, says Elizabeth Lennon, a veterinarian at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine.

It's a different story with big cats, however. Ninety have tested positive in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). "I think that if you look at the big picture in all of the zoos, you can confidently say there is some increased susceptibility to clinical disease in large felids," Lennon says.

Some species are more susceptible to certain variants.

Take mice. They evaded the original SARS-CoV-2 virus, but we know they can be infected with the beta variant.

As variants emerge in humans, the virus could be expanding its host range-mutating to infect more species and potentially circulating "silently" among them, creating a new reservoir, says Diego Diel, associate professor and director of the virology laboratory at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine.

But the opposite is also true: It's possible that new variants would be harmless to certain species, Diel says, because "as the virus becomes more effective in transmitting between humans, it may become less effective in moving between animals."

As of now, there's no evidence that with the exception of mink, any species, including pets, can transmit the virus to humans, or that variants have emerged after mutating in another species.

Most animals don't seem to get seriously ill from COVID-19.

The majority of animals in the U.S.-including Ngozi and Kibo, the hyenas-have had only mild symptoms and made full recoveries.

The most serious cases have occurred in snow leopards and mink. At Lincoln Children's Zoo, in Nebraska, three snow leopards died in November from complications from COVID-19. It's unclear if they had underlying conditions. And thousands of mink have died at 17 fur farms in Utah and other states. Millions more have been euthanized on farms in Denmark and the Netherlands.

Buddy, the first dog to be confirmed positive for COVID-19 in the U.S., died in July, but he likely had lymphoma, which experts say may have played a role.

Studying COVID-19 in animals matters.

"As soon as you have more than one species that can maintain and transmit a virus, that has significant implications in control strategies and prevention strategies as well," Diel says. It's therefore crucial to find out whether any species could become a reservoir for the virus.

"Animals pose different and unknown risks," Lennon says. "It's certainly important that surveillance in many different species continues, because the virus is so widespread," which increases exposure and transmissibility.

Testing skews toward animals that have shown signs of illness.

The number of animal infections in the U.S. probably exceeds the 315 recorded cases, Diel says. If animals don't show symptoms, it's unlikely they'll be tested, and that makes it difficult to learn about potential silent spreaders-animals that may contract the virus and pass it on without ever exhibiting symptoms.

The white-tailed deer is one species scientists are monitoring closely. This year, a study analyzing blood from more than 600 deer in four U.S. states found antibodies to the coronavirus in nearly 40 percent of the samples. Last month, COVID-19 was detected in three deer in Quebec, Canada. None of the animals seemed sick.

There's no evidence that deer can pass the virus to humans or other species. But the specter of a silent reservoir gives scientists pause. "That's why everyone's been so concerned about these deer studies," Lennon says. If a virus quietly spreads and even mutates in a large animal population, "it's much harder to control and eradicate."

The overwhelming majority of zoo animal cases in the U.S. have been reported by accredited facilities that have strict health protocols.

Bronx Zoo, where the first tigers and lions tested positive in April 2020, San Diego Zoo Safari Park, where the first gorilla tested positive in January 2021, and Lincoln Children's Zoo, home to the three snow leopards who died, are all members of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), a U.S. nonprofit that sets standards for animal care and safety.

The AZA's more stringent veterinary protocols mean that caregivers are more likely to detect illness in their animals and to conduct testing, says Dan Ashe, president of the AZA. "They're constantly monitoring the animals," he says. "If something doesn't seem right, they are asking the questions."

Standard practices during the pandemic include wearing personal protective equipment and minimizing close contact with animals, according to veterinarians at several AZA-accredited zoos with positive cases. "Our members have taken a lot of measures to provide protection, and we're still seeing infections," Ashe says. "So it's hard to believe it's not happening at other facilities where contact is much more-shall we say-liberal."

We have no idea what might be happening at "roadside" zoos that offer visitors hands-on interactions with animals.

Many roadside zoos, such as those featured in Netflix's Tiger King, offer hands-on contact with animals, especially lion and tiger cubs-species known to be susceptible to the virus. These zoos must be licensed by the USDA to exhibit animals but are not accredited by the AZA, which doesn't allow contact between big cats and the public. (Read about Tiger King fans who waited in an hours-long line to have the chance to pet tiger cubs during the height of the pandemic.)

The care standards set by the USDA fall well below those of the AZA, and roadside zoos are notorious for lax veterinary care and safety protocols. It's unclear whether any big cats at roadside zoos or cub-petting facilities have been tested for the virus or have died from it.

"I think the risk is higher" at roadside zoos, Diel says. "A requirement for transmission is close contact, and in every situation where you ... broaden the number of people that have contact with animals, that increases the risk."

We need more data, and we need to keep studying.

Although COVID-19 is primarily a human disease, Lennon says, the growing number of species known to be susceptible to the virus should be a call to action. "We need to be doing a lot of surveillance in different species and in new variants" such as Omicron, she says. "This virus from the get-go has surprised everyone at every turn ... We can't let our guard down at any point, as we keep learning over and over."

How you can help

1. If you're positive for COVID-19, isolate yourself from your pets, just as you would from other humans. If your pet seems sick, call your veterinarian.

2. Refrain from touching or getting close to big cats at petting zoos to prevent spread of the virus. We know that tigers and lions are susceptible to COVID-19. (And cub petting poses other risks to animals as well.)

3. Get vaccinated if you aren't already. Vaccination is proven to reduce the spread of COVID-19, protecting humans and animals.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Hippos, hyenas, and other animals are contracting COVID-19

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ngozi and Kibo, ages 22 and 23, developed a cough, lethargy, and runny noses at home in Colorado in November. Soon it was determined that their run-of-the-mill symptoms were signs of a global first: These Denver Zoo residents became the first hyenas in the world known to be infected with COVID-19.

# data[].attributes.headline
The World Health Organization's Map on Covid 19 around the world

# data[].attributes.subject
The World Health Organization's Map on Covid 19 around the world

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Globally, as of 4:12pm CET, 16 November 2023, there have been 772,011,164 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 6,979,786 deaths, reported to WHO. As of 7 November 2023, a total of 13,534,602,932 vaccine doses have been administered.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
World Health Organization Coronavirus disease situation dashboard presents official daily counts of COVID-19 cases and deaths worldwide, along with vaccination rates and other vaccination data, while providing a hub to other resources. Interactive tools, including maps, epidemic curves and other charts and graphics, with downloadable data, allow users to track and explore the latest trends, numbers and statistics at global, regional and country levels.

# data[].attributes.headline
Why the World is Still Arguing over face masks, 20 months into the pandemic

# data[].attributes.subject
Why the World is Still Arguing over face masks, 20 months into the pandemic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
face masks: why the world is still arguing about them

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why the world is still arguing over face masks, 20 months into the pandemic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The science behind masks is clear. Yet debates still rage in multiple countries over their use, and some regions have recently removed mandates that people wear them in crowded spaces.

# data[].attributes.headline
Interactive Map on School Closures Around the World

# data[].attributes.subject
Interactive Map on School Closures Around the World

# data[].attributes.headline
Is Covax finally going to vaccinate the world?

# data[].attributes.subject
Is Covax finally going to vaccinate the world?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This story is part of a group of stories called

Finding the best ways to do good.

Last September, the World Health Organization and the United Nations laid out a roadmap to end the pandemic. The key goal: having every country in the world achieve at least 40 percent vaccination coverage against Covid-19 by the end of 2021, and 70 percent by mid-2022.

One major player in that effort has been Covax. A global vaccine distribution project co-led by the WHO, Covax was billed by one sponsor as the "world's best hope of bringing the acute phase of this pandemic to a swift end." However, it has been plagued with problems since its inception - namely insufficient funds, insufficient supply, and insufficient willingness from rich countries to share vaccines. These struggles have hampered the global fight against Covid-19.

But there's a glimmer of hope. Covax ended the year strong: December brought a last-minute surge of deliveries, with about 300 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines shipped to 144 mostly low- and middle-income countries. That is roughly a third of the total of vaccine doses Covax delivered in 2021 - in only one month.

As the Washington Post reported, much of this surge can be attributed to an increase in the supply of vaccine doses to Covax, particularly with long-delayed donations from high-income countries and pharmaceutical companies like Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Pfizer, and BioNTech.

That's welcome news, not just for the countries that received them, but also for the world. Vaccine equity would most directly prevent sickness and death in low- and middle-income countries, but it would also give the virus fewer opportunities to mutate and produce variants like delta and omicron.

Even with the late surge, though, the total number of vaccines delivered in 2021 -900 million - amounts to less than half of Covax's original target of sending at least 2 billion doses by the end of 2021. "We're very far from the 70 percent vaccination rate in low-income countries," says Amanda Glassman, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, adding that reaching that level soon would require a "huge lift" in terms of financing for booster doses and delivery. "We're still not serious as a world about paying for the stuff and getting it done."

Almost three-fourths of all Covid-19 vaccine shots administered thus far have gone into the arms of people in high- and upper-middle-income countries, with more booster doses in high-income countries having been administered than total doses in low-income countries. While 59.4 percent of the global population has received at least one dose so far, only 9.5 percent of people in low-income countries have received that much coverage. Experts have denounced this state of affairs as the product of nationalism and extremeglobal inequality.

Nevertheless, this late 2021 surge in vaccine deliveries could be a hopeful sign that a key vessel for global vaccination efforts is finally righting itself. With improvements in supply and delivery, Covax has the potential to help the world reach greater vaccination coverage. But all of this hinges on Covax getting this right - and that few further storms appear on the horizon for the project.

Covax, explained

Covax is an initiative led by three groups. There's the WHO; Gavi, a public-private group that works on getting people in developing countries vaccinated; and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a project co-founded by the Gates Foundation that seeks to make vaccines available in the event of outbreaks. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is also organizing the delivery of vaccines.

Rich countries were supposed to pool funding through Covaxto negotiate deals for and finance multiple vaccine candidates, increasing the chances of effective ones being developed. At the same time, some of that financing was intended to allow Covax itself to purchase vaccines for poorer countries that couldn't afford them. In addition, Covaxwas also supposedto gather vaccines via donationsfrom nonprofits, businesses, and countries,in order to further shore up its supply.

But all that didn't quite pan out. Rich countries not only faltered in their funding commitments to Covax, they also struck their own bilateral deals with pharmaceutical companies, even as Covax was still fundraising.That left the group with little supply to buy once it did raise funds. And even when rich nations amassed more vaccines than they needed, they were slow to donate the extras.

Pharmaceutical companies similarly underdelivered on the commitments they had made to Covax. A report by the People's Vaccine Alliance - a coalition of organizations and activists campaigning for the sharing of knowledge and technology related to Covid-19 vaccines, treatments, and tests - found that neither AstraZeneca, Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, nor Johnson and Johnson "have sold more than 25 percent of their vaccine supply (agreed through contracts)" to Covax as of October 2021.

Groups like Oxfam International suspect this is because these companies "put their rich customers at the front of the line." And when vaccine doses finally did make it to poorer countries, too many of themwere close to expiration, leaving little time to get shots into arms. A joint investigation in October by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Stat News also found that Covax had contributed less than 5 percent of all vaccines administered globally.

"The reality is that Covax purchased a bit later than the high-income countries, and bet on Indian manufacturers given their limited resources," Glassman says. When those Indian vaccines failed to pan out because of the devastating delta surge in that country, another expected source of doses dried up. "It's not surprising that they didn't get the deliveries they hoped for during [2021]."

What the year-end surge means

But if Covax's performance to date has been underwhelming, the surge in activity in late 2021 has renewed hopes that it's turned the corner.

Olly Cann, director of communications at Gavi, believes that the end-of-year surge in shipments is indeed a hopeful sign that the pace of vaccine distribution will pick up for Covax this year. "We do have genuine momentum when it comes to delivering doses into the countries that we serve," he says. "We're now in a situation where we can now meet the demand" of the low- and middle-income countries that Covax is prioritizing.

A major reason for that optimism is in seeing positive signs in India, a major vaccine producer and the main supplier of vaccines to Covax. Due to the devastating second wave of Covid-19 that hit India last spring, the country focused its efforts on vaccinating its own citizens and had banned exports of doses, which Cann notes was "a severe blow to us at the time."

The country finally resumed exports to Covax at the end of November. Along with the WHO's long-awaited emergency approval of the vaccine developed by US-based Novavax, whose manufacturing partner for Covax is the Serum Institute of India. and which doesn't require the cold storage needed by mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, Covax is "back in business," Glassman says.

She expects India's shipments to Covax to continue for the next three months at least, adding that even with Omicron, India may not need to resort to export bans again now that 62 percent of Indians have received at least one dose.

Another problem with Covax is that it was initially developed as a procurement and shipping effort for vaccines, but not a delivery effort - meaning actually getting shots into arms. "Waiting for a delivery is a big deal, obviously, because the longer the wait, the more disease and deaths there will be," Glassman says.

But Covax deliveries are now ramping up, as shipments from India are finally reaching recipient countries and also because the international community is finally starting to address this problem of delivery. Glassman also notes that last month, Covax's leadership appointed Ted Chaiban, the regional director for the Middle East and North Africa for Unicef, to serve as the organization's global coordinator for vaccine readiness and delivery. In her view, this reflects a shift in Covax's strategy toward actually administering vaccines in recipient countries.

Can Covax help achieve 70 percent global vaccination by the middle of 2022?

Despite the recent good news, it's highly unlikely that Covax will enable the WHO to reach its goal of 70 percent global vaccination by mid-year. While supply constraints have eased, financing is still a challenge, as high-income countries have remained unwilling to share enough funds or resources for low- and middle-income countries to acquire or make the vaccines themselves.

But there are also questions about how practical that 70 percent vaccination coverage threshold is - both for the rich nations meant to be funding Covax and the poorer countries meant to receive vaccines. Governments in lower-income countries with younger populations (who are less susceptible to hospitalization and death from Covid-19) are overwhelmed by many competing priorities, such as poverty, hunger, and other diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria. Glassman and Cann both mentioned that the 70 percent vaccination goal may not just be out of reach, but also simply not the best allocation of limited resources.

Cann also notes that Covax was never meant to be the solitary silver bullet to solve the issue of vaccine equity.

"What we were set up to do was to cover the most vulnerable groups as quickly as possible," Cann says. "That's why we initially focused on the 20 percent coverage of the [highest priority low- and middle-income recipient] countries. This is roughly 950 million doses. We're actually quite close to this now, and we'll have delivered that number in the coming days, if not weeks."

Meeting its goalswill also depend on whether Covax willbe pushed down the priority list again in favor of high-income countries, as the latter now aim to shore up supplies of vaccines to administer booster shots for their populations.

"The big problem we've had, and still to a degree do, is that it's been very, very hard to get transparency from manufacturers on when doses are going to be coming to us," Cann says. "It's difficult for us to be confident that we're not being pushed to the back of the queue, or being deprioritized over bilateral deals."

Ultimately, Glassman believes that the optimistic scenario is that there are "orders in place, there's manufacturing under way to meet those orders, and then it's just a matter of time and effort for the shots to get from airports into arms."

Covax has a long way to go though if it wants to achieve the WHO's goal, and it's likely the poorest countries in the world won't achieve 70 percent vaccination until 2023 at current rates of delivery.

That said, countries in the Global South also may not need to keep waiting on Covax. They are already pursuing other avenues to vaccinate their populations, from pushing for a patent waiver at theWorld Trade Organization to encourage technology transfer, to shoring up their own domestic manufacturing capabilities (including for mRNA vaccines) toseeking out other vaccine sources.

And there was one more development of noteat the very end of 2021: CORBEVAX, a vaccine created by Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, was licensed for use without patents and had its technology transferred immediately to Biological E. Limited, an Indian pharmaceutical manufacturer. One of the key people behind the project, Dr. Peter Hotez, claimed available CORBEVAX doses will soon surpass in number the vaccine doses donated so far by the US government or any other G7 country.

Given the enormous need - both to protect vulnerable people in the poorest nations and prevent the rise of new variants - the world must pursue every possible channel to get shots into arms and truly end the Covid-19 pandemic. Though Covax is showing signs of turning the corner, it may end up playing a smaller role than what the international community had originally envisioned for it in 2020.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Is Covax finally going to vaccinate the world?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Finding the best ways to do good. Last September, the World Health Organization and the United Nations laid out a roadmap to end the pandemic. The key goal: having every country in the world achieve at least 40 percent vaccination coverage against Covid-19 by the end of 2021, and 70 percent by mid-2022.

# data[].attributes.headline
Calling Omicron "Mild" is Wishful Thinking

# data[].attributes.subject
Calling Omicron "Mild" is Wishful Thinking

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We are far past the point of hoping that this variant will spare us.

For weeks, the watchword on Omicron in much of America has been some form of phew. A flurry of reports has encouraged a relatively rosy view of the variant, compared with some of its predecessors. Omicron appears to somewhat spare the lungs. Infected laboratory mice and hamsters seem to handily fight it off. Proportionally, fewer of the people who catch it wind up hospitalized or dead. All of this has allowed a deceptively reassuring narrative to take root and grow: Omicron is mild. The variant is docile, harmless, the cause of an #Omicold that's no worse than a fleeting flu. It is so trivial, some have argued, that the world should simply " allow this mild infection to circulate," and avoid slowing the spread. Omicron, as Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky would have you believe, is " basically nature's vaccine."

These dismissals of the variant as trifling-desirable, even-represent "a very dangerous attitude," Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale, told me. At the core of the problem sits the word mild itself, a slippery and pernicious term that "doesn't mean what people think it means," Neil Lewis, a behavioral scientist at Cornell, told me. Less severe forms of COVID-19 can certainly be experienced by individual people, especially if they're vaccinated. And there are true reasons to think that Omicron, particle for particle, might be less toothy than Delta. But Omicron's unfettered spread has sowed a situation that is not mild at all. And right now, the notion of mildness is making the pandemic worse for everyone.

Much of our Omicron problem can be traced back to a false binary: That the variant is less of a danger too often gets misconstrued as the variant is not a danger at all. Severity works in degrees, which is indeed what we're seeing. Per capita, Omicron seems less likely than Delta to hospitalize or kill the people it infects. In South Africa, one of the first countries to be hit by the variant, cases have already crested at a record-shattering peak, but hospitalizations, admissions to intensive-care units, and deaths remain far below the heights of prior waves; infections also appear to be decoupling from severe disease in parts of continental Europe. Even in the United States, where the pandemic is as bad as it's ever been, early data are pointing to a blunting in the propensity of Omicron cases to turn severe.
Read: COVID-hospitalization numbers are as bad as they look
It's tempting to attribute all of this to the virus, but doing so would be overly simplistic. Disease always manifests as an interaction between pathogen and host, which means there are twomain reasons that Omicron cases can present with softer symptoms: a more resilient human, or a more docile microbe. In this current surge, we're likely seeing both effects collide.

The first part of the equation is entirely about us. Two years into a pandemic that's left hundreds of millions with known infections and prompted billions to sign up for shots, Omicron is knocking up against populations that are better defended than ever. In the United Kingdom, where more than 80 percent of people over 12 are at least doubly vaccinated, the shots are clearly lowering the risk of hospitalization among those infected with Omicron, especially among the boosted. A high number of prior infections from past COVID surges may have had a similarly mollifying effect in South Africa, where the average age of the population is also very young, and thus better steeled against severe COVID-19.

The second part of the equation-the inherent potency of the virus itself-unfortunately gets harderto parse when the world is more immune, Roby Bhattacharyya, a microbiologist and infectious-disease physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, told me. Still, even unvaccinated people with Omicron seem less likely to end up hospitalized, in the ICU, or on ventilators. Laboratory rodents infected with Omicron don't seem to be getting all that sick either, perhaps because the new variant is less adept than Delta at colonizing the lungs, where the wildfire-like inflammation of serious respiratory disease often ignites. Similarly, researchers are finding that Omicron isn't keen on infecting human tissue extracted from the lung, and may prefer to cloister itself in loftier sites like the throat, Ravindra Gupta, a virologist at the University of Cambridge, told me. What happens in a rodent or a plastic dish can't recapitulate what happens in a human body. But Iwasaki still thinks "there is something intrinsically less virulent about Omicron."

It's fair, then, to say that the average Omicron case is indeed "less severe." And there are plenty of people for whom the math will work out well. They're hosts who are young, healthy, and up to date on their vaccines, squaring off with a pathogen that packs an oh-so-slightly weaker punch, at least compared with Delta. Keep in mind, though, that Delta is probably nastier than its already-awful ancestors, so to simply call the virus "mild" massively undersells the danger it still poses, especially when it finds its way into unvaccinated or vaccinated-but-still-vulnerable hosts. Even people who are thrice-vaccinated can't exempt themselves from Omicron's risk, especially not while cases are rising at such high rates, and exposures are so frequent and heavy.
Read: Hospitals are in serious trouble
The variant offers a harsh lesson in multiplication: So many people have been infected that a relatively small percentage of medically severe cases has still erupted into an absolutely staggering number. In the United States, where most of the population has at least one risk factor for severe COVID-19 and a quarter of people have yet to receive a single dose of a vaccine, the untethering of severe disease from cases is shaping up to be a substantially muted echo of what's been seen abroad. Hospitalizations have already hit a new pandemic peak. Among them are huge numbers of kids, many of whom are still too young to be vaccinated. When Omicron finds vulnerable hosts, it can still exact SARS-CoV-2's worst. And Omicron is finding them.

COVID-19 doesn't have to be medically severe to take a toll. Lekshmi Santhosh, a critical-care physician at UCSF, has seen Omicron exacerbate chronic health issues to the point where they turn fatal. "You could say they didn't die of COVID," she told me. "But if they didn't have COVID, they wouldn't have had this issue." Iwasaki, of Yale, also worries about the storm of long-COVID cases, which can sprout out of infections that are initially almost symptom-free, that may soon be on the way. "Some of these people are bedridden, unable to return to work for months," she told me. "There is nothing mild about it."

In high-enough numbers, any Omicron infection can wreak havoc. Across the country, people are entering isolation in droves, closing schools and businesses, and hamstringing hospitals that can already ill-afford a staffing shortage. In many parts of the country, hospital capacities are already being reached and exceeded, making it difficult for people to seek care for any kind of illness. An overstretched system could also, ironically, mask the extent of Omicron's tear: When hospitals are full, they cannot accept more patients, artificially deflating recorded rates of severe disease, even as total cases continue to rise. "Omicron may be more mild at the individual symptom level," Duana Fullwiley, a medical anthropologist at Stanford who has studied how the term mild has affected people's experience of sickle-cell anemia in Senegal, told me. "But we're not talking about the severity of Omicron as it's impacting the system."

Omicron also still harbors dangerous unknowns. The variant may snub the lungs, but it still accumulates quickly in the throat and mouth-real estate that positions it to spill easily out of infected people. That, compounded with Omicron's ability to dodge certain immune defenses, makes it a threat to more of us at once. Subdued symptoms, too, can come with a catch if infected people ignore them and continue to mingle. (And the variant seems to be tougher to detect early in infection with certain rapid antigen tests.) Researchers also don't yet have a good handle on just how much immunity Omicron infections-especially the gentlest ones-may leave behind.
Read: Should I just get Omicron over with?
Stephen Goldstein, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Utah, told me that Omicron might turn out to be about as inherently virulent as the original SARS-CoV-2 variant, the version of the virus that kick-started all this misery. If that's the case, it would be ironic. Two years ago is also when mild and COVID-19 first insidiously intertwined: Roughly 80 percent of cases could be described as such, reports noted at the time, inviting dismissive and misleading comparisons to the flu, and jeering calls to push Americans back to work and school. Mild became shorthand for piddling; that soothing framing took hold, then lingered, "diminishing the sense of urgency in prevention," as the medical anthropologist Martha Lincoln has written, even through the billions of infections, and the many millions of hospitalizations and deaths, that followed.

Today, news reports are using mild and COVID-19 together more than ever before, Elena Semino, a linguist at Lancaster University, in the United Kingdom, told me. Medically, the term mild originated as an academic catchall for all SARS-CoV-2 infections not severe enough to get someone admitted to a hospital-everything from asymptomatic cases all the way up to people just short of going into respiratory failure. But most of that range squares poorly with mild's colloquial connotations regarding "temperate, pleasant, generally benign" food, weather, even people, Semino said. Mild, to most of us, is whatever, something that blows almost imperceptibly by.

That's the trap of mildness: the underlying sense of fatalism it engenders. "People say, it's inevitable; it's mild; I hope I can catch it and move on," Santhosh, of UCSF, told me. Calling Omicron "mild" implies that the virus is spontaneously domesticating itself; it punts the responsibility of harm reduction to the pathogen, and away from us. But Omicron is not our deus ex microbe. As Goldstein, of the University of Utah, points out, a virus's imperative is only to spread -not, necessarily, to treat its hosts more genially. (Omicron is not even descended from Delta, so we can't frame their severities as a stepwise evolutionary drop.) The attitude that Omicron is hardly anything to worry about is compounding the disaster we've found ourselves in: The more opportunities the virus has to enter new hosts, the more variants will arise. And there's no telling what harm the next SARS-CoV-2 iteration will bring.

It's worth remembering, then, that severity, or lack thereof, is not up to the virus alone. We, as hosts, dictate its damage at least as much-and that's the side of the equation we can control. SARS-CoV-2 can't be counted on to pull its punches, but we have the vaccines to pummel it right back. If mildness is what we're after, that future is largely up to us.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Calling Omicron 'Mild' Is Wishful Thinking

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We are far past the point of hoping that this variant will spare us. For weeks, the watchword on Omicron in much of America has been some form of phew. A flurry of reports has encouraged a relatively rosy view of the variant, compared with some of its predecessors.