With new coronavirus cases and deaths continuing to emerge at record levels, the United States is poised to begin a lengthy vaccination campaign.
The first shipments of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccine will not be enough to inoculate even just the medical workers and nursing home residents at the top of the waiting list. But after federal regulators granted emergency authorization for the Pfizer vaccine, millions of doses were expected to be shipped across the country, a small but tangible step toward ending the pandemic.
By design, the vaccine rollout will be a patchwork. Though federal regulators are responsible for deciding when a vaccine can be safely used, it is largely up to the states to determine how to deploy the doses they receive. Recipients of both vaccines will need two doses administered weeks apart. Distribution is meant to be based on adult population estimates.
The first time New Zealand thought it had eliminated the coronavirus from its isolated shores, a mysterious outbreak in its largest city shattered any sense of victory over a tenacious foe.
Now, after a second round of strict lockdown, the country believes — if a bit more tentatively this time — that it has effectively stamped out the virus once again.
On Wednesday, New Zealand moved to lift the last of its restrictions in Auckland after 10 days with no new cases linked to a cluster that first surfaced in August. The government will now allow unrestricted gatherings, and trips on public transit without social distancing or masks, in the city of 1.6 million people.
The town of Crisfield was impacted heavily by Superstorm Sandy. Going into its second year after Sandy's landfall, only one third of the houses impacted in Crisfield (the most heavily impacted town on the Eastern Shore) have been restored. Infrastructure remains fragile and the economy, although temporarily improved to some degree by modest recovery funds, continues in a fragile state under long-term decline. Overall, Crisfield's population continues in a long-term decline after being the second most prosperous city in Maryland during the late 1800s and early 1900s, before its fisheries largely collapsed with the decline in the Chesapeake Bay's ecosystem.
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