Christmas could lead to more coronavirus spread than Thanksgiving, Fauci says

BEIRUT — U.S. economic sanctions on Iran could impede its access to coronavirus vaccines, business and financial analysts say, imperiling efforts to contain the largest outbreak in the Middle East and risking continued spread of the virus throughout the region.

While a spokesman for the Covax global vaccine program said Iran has received a U.S. government exemption to procure vaccines, analysts warn that financial sanctions hamstring Iran’s efforts to participate in the program and to make related medical purchases.

“The Trump administration has deliberately failed to provide the kind of clarity and guidance that would be necessary to allow financial institutions that contain Iranian accounts” to allow Iran “use of its own money for making these purchases,” said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, founder and publisher of Bourse & Bazaar, a media company supporting business diplomacy between Europe and Iran.

Since the epidemic erupted in February, Iran has failed to gain a grip on the outbreak, which has infected more than 1 million people there and killed about 50,000, according to official reports.

Millions of Americans who lost their jobs during the pandemic have fallen thousands of dollars behind on rent and utility bills, a warning sign that people are running out of money for basic needs.

Nearly 12 million renters will owe an average of $5,850 in back rent and utilities by January, Moody’s Analytics warns. Last month, 9 million renters said they were behind on rent, according to a Census Bureau survey.

Economists say the data underscores the deepening financial disaster for many families as the pandemic continues to shut off work opportunities, lending new urgency to negotiations over a second round of stimulus that could reinstate federal unemployment insurance and rental assistance, among other forms of aid.

On Monday, lawmakers were working to release an outline of the latest $908 billion bill, which has some bipartisan support. The deal would restart $300 in weekly federal unemployment in January running through April, although details are still being worked out, congressional aides said.

Florida police officers with guns drawn raided the home of an ousted health department data scientist Monday morning, searching for the former agency employee’s most powerful tools: her computer, her phone and other hardware that supports the coronavirus website she set up after accusing the state of manipulating its official numbers.

Law enforcement allege that the scientist, Rebekah Jones, may have also used the devices to hack into a health department website in November and to send an unauthorized message to Florida emergency personnel, urging them to speak out against the state’s pandemic response.

This is the latest clash between Jones and state officials, who have traded accusations since she was fired from the Florida Department of Health this summer. Jones said she had refused to comply with agency requests she considered unethical and she has accused the state of mismanaging a health crisis that has so far infected more than a million residents and killed nearly 20,000.

The armed officers, acting on a search warrant, knocked on the door of Jones’s house in Tallahassee around 8:30 a.m. Monday. A state police spokesperson said the officers announced their arrival, informed Jones they had a search warrant and tried calling her during the 20 minutes before she let them in.

A 30-second video that Jones posted to Twitter captures the tense moments after she opened her door.

Many Americans take for granted that we can get health care when we need it. Access and coverage are real concerns for some, yet even the most vulnerable among us know that if they are severely ill, there will be an emergency room and a hospital bed ready for them. But now the coronavirus pandemic is distorting our system in ways that are affecting everyone’s ability to get hospital care.

The virus is beginning to overrun our health-care defenses. We saw something similar during the first surge, in April, when New York and other cities around the United States resorted to field hospitals and mobile morgues. But this time, it is happening in large parts of the country. And counterintuitively, the reason we know covid-19 is overwhelming the system is because of what might look like a good sign at first glance: The hospitalization rate for patients with the virus is dropping quickly.

This development is a surprise. We know so much more about covid-19 than we did back in April — about how to prevent its spread and how best to treat it. But as the virus spread during much of September and October, policymakers were silent and did nothing. By November, we started seeing real strains on our system. Now, in December, some Americans who need hospital care — for covid-19 and other serious ailments — are having a hard time getting it.

And things are likely to get worse.

Pfizer has told the Trump administration it cannot provide additional doses of its coronavirus vaccine until late June or early July because other countries have rushed to buy up its supply, according to multiple individuals familiar with the situation.

That means the U.S. government will have 100 million doses of the two-shot Pfizer vaccine purchased earlier this year — far fewer than it initially planned — raising questions about whether it can keep to its aggressive schedule to vaccinate most Americans by late spring or early summer.

Trump administration officials denied there would be availability issues in the second quarter, citing other vaccines in the pipeline, but others said problems are possible. But several officials knowledgeable about the contracts said that supplies from other companies may be insufficient to fill the gap, depending on what other vaccines have been authorized by then.

Pfizer officials had urged Operation Warp Speed to initially purchase 200 million doses, or enough for the two-shot regimen for 100 million people last summer, according to people knowledgeable about the issue who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the situation. But the Warp Speed officials declined, opting instead for 100 million doses, or enough for 50 million people, they said.

President-elect Joe Biden’s choice to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a widely respected infectious-diseases specialist regarded as a strong communicator unafraid to speak her mind, qualities critical to returning the beleaguered public health agency to its traditional front-line role and to bringing the coronavirus pandemic under control.

But while Rochelle Walensky’s research has long had a public health focus, she has never run a government agency or organization as large and complex as the CDC.

Walensky, 51, heads the infectious-diseases department at Massachusetts General Hospital, one of the nation’s storied medical centers, and is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She has conducted pioneering research on HIV/AIDS, with an emphasis on equity and access to treatment.

They went to see the flags on a Wednesday afternoon in late October. Terihya Bullock and her mother, Tojuana Myles Whitley, approached the blocks-long green in front of RFK Stadium in Washington reverently, as if entering a cemetery, joining other hushed mourners on similar missions. The grass had been planted with thousands of white pennants, one for every person in the United States killed by the coronavirus. Bullock and Myles Whitley wanted to add two more.

Bullock was wearing a mask printed with a picture of her and her husband, Andre L. Bullock Sr., 48, who had worked at a rental car agency and died in early August. A heart-shaped pendant containing some of his ashes hung around her neck. Myles Whitley lost her father, Conrad D. Myles Jr., 84, a retired butcher on Capitol Hill, in late July.

At a table set up for the purpose, the women got flags and wrote their loved ones’ names, dates of death and a message — “Love U Forever” — before planting their flags among the multitude.