Pandemic haunts new year as virus growth outpaces vaccines

LONDON (AP) — Despite growing vaccine access, January is looking grim around the globe as the virus resurges and reshapes itself from Britain to Japan to California, filling hospitals and threatening livelihoods anew as governments lock down businesses and race to find solutions.

Mexico City’s hospitals hold more virus patients than they ever have. Germany reported one of its highest daily death tolls to date Tuesday, and South African undertakers are struggling to keep up with virus mortalities. Even pandemic success story Thailand is fighting an unexpected wave of infections.

And as doctors face or brace for rising numbers of COVID-19 patients after end-of-year holiday gatherings, more and more countries are reporting cases of a new, more contagious virus variant that has already swept across Britain.

January is going to be “a tough one,” Dr. Margaret Harris, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization, told The Associated Press. “This idea that seems to be ‘Ah, we’re all sick of it. We want to look at something else. Oh, this doesn’t apply to me' .... That’s got to go away. It really is all hands on deck.”

While Britain rolled out a second vaccine this week and some U.S. states are starting to give booster shots from the country’s first vaccine, access to inoculations globally is sharply unequal. The supply also isn’t remotely close to meeting the massive demand needed to fight a microscopic foe that has already killed over 1.85 million people.

“We’re at intense pandemic in Europe, intense pandemic in the U.S.," Harris said. “The more you can bring the transmission down, the better chance you have of your vaccine vaccination strategy working."

England is facing a third national lockdown that will last at least six weeks, as authorities struggle to stem a surge in COVID-19...