A Pandemic Update: The Variant and the Vaccine Rollout

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 11 January 2021

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As 2020 drew to a close, a concerning development in the pandemic came out of Britain — a new variant of the coronavirus had been discovered that is significantly more transmissible. It has since been discovered in a number of countries, including the United States. The emergence of the new variant has added a new level of urgency to the rollout of vaccines in the U.S., a process that has been slow so far. Today, an exploration of two key issues in the fight against the pandemic. Guests: Carl Zimmer, a science writer and author of the “Matter” column for The New York Times; Abby Goodnough, a national health care correspondent for The Times. For an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. You can read the latest edition here. Background reading: The new variant of the coronavirus, discovered in December, appears to be more contagious than, and genetically distinct from, more established variants. Here is what we know about it. The first case of the variant in the U.S. was found in Colorado in December. Pfizer has said that its vaccine works against the key mutation. The distribution of the vaccine in the U.S. is taking longer than expected — holiday staffing and saving doses for nursing homes are contributing to delays. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily

Transcript

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0:00.0	From The New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is a Daily.
0:10.0	The House is preparing an article of impeachment against President Trump,
0:14.0	as rioters are being arrested across the country for their role in last week's storming of the Capitol.
0:22.0	But lost in that story is the reality that the coronavirus is at an all-time peak,
0:28.0	with 300,000 Americans infected on a single day last week,
0:34.0	and as the U.S. death rate surpassed 4,000 a day.
0:40.0	Today, a two-part update on the pandemic, with my colleagues Carl Zimmer and Abby Goodnough.
0:48.0	It's Monday, January 11th.
1:08.0	Good afternoon, everybody, and thank you for joining the latest coronavirus press conference.
1:14.0	It seems that the spread is now being driven by the new variant of the virus.
1:20.0	Cases in London and the southeast of England are skyrocketing.
1:24.0	The new variant is out of control, and we need to bring it under control.
1:28.0	And it's been detected in at least 17 other countries.
1:32.0	Unfortunately, we now know this UK variant is in Colorado, it's in California.
1:36.0	A man in the state of New York has now tested positive for COVID-19 with that same UK variant.
1:41.0	The UK strain could be a game changer.
1:48.0	Carl, where does the story of this British variant of the coronavirus start?
1:54.0	The story starts around the beginning of December and actually in South Africa.
2:00.0	Their scientists notice that there's a variant of the coronavirus that is spreading around very quickly
2:08.0	and it has them very worried.
2:12.0	Scientists in the United Kingdom take a look at those mutations in the virus and they say,
2:17.0	I wonder if any of our viruses have any of those mutations.
	...

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