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| America came this close to herd immunity. |
| Last May, "we had enough vaccination and natural immunity to have basically almost achieved a population level of immunity," said Dr. Eric Topol. "We were getting down to fewer than 10,000 cases a day. We were looking good." |
| Then the delta variant moved the goal posts. |
| The optimistic expectation, experts say, is that the pandemic will die down, and the virus will become one of the world's many endemic viruses that continue to circulate but cause much less disease and death. Read more here about how the virus may become "manageable." |
| It's Monday, and this is Coronavirus Watch from the USA TODAY Network. Here's more news you need to know. |
| • | New York City's 148,000 school teachers and staffers are required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 effective Monday as the nation's largest public school system became one of the first to mandate inoculation. | | • | More than 2,200 schools in 561 districts across 45 states have closed temporarily because of a COVID-19 outbreak since the start of the school year, according to Burbio, a New York-based data service that is tracking K-12 school reopening trends. | | • | Rural Americans are dying of COVID-19 at more than twice the rate of their urban counterparts – a divide that health experts say is likely to widen as access to medical care shrinks for a population that tends to be older, sicker, heavier, poorer and less vaccinated, according to Kaiser Health News. | | • | The number of Floridians getting vaccinated has slowed to a crawl, an analysis of state data shows. The number of residents receiving shots climbed more slowly in the past week than at any time since late December. | |
| Today's numbers: The U.S. has reported more than 43.6 million COVID-19 cases and 701,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Worldwide, there have been more than 235 million cases and more than 4.8 million deaths. About 65% of people in the U.S. have received at least one vaccine shot, and about 56% are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. Among U.S. adults, 78% have received at least one shot, and about 67% are fully vaccinated. |
| Tracking the pandemic: See the numbers in your area here. See where cases are rising here. See vaccination rates here. And here, compare vaccinations rates worldwide and see which countries are using which vaccines. |
| – Grace Hauck, USA TODAY breaking news reporter, @grace_hauck |
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