What happened
With new daily cases of Covid-19 in the
U.S. falling to their lowest level since
October and the pace of vaccinations
accelerating, President Biden this week
sought to temper expectations about the
pandemic’s end by saying that coronavirus
shots should be available for all adults by
late July—and a return to normal life pos-
sible by Christmas. The vaccination rate
climbed 11 percent this week, to nearly 1.
million shots a day, and 13.5 million doses
were distributed to states, up 57 percent
since January. By the end of the year, Biden
told a CNN town hall, “significantly
fewer” Americans may need to socially
distance or wear masks, though he added, “I don’t want to over-
promise anything.” Just days earlier, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s
top infectious-disease expert, had walked back his recent projection
that vaccines would be widely available to the general public by late
April. That timeline had been based on Johnson & Johnson shipping
30 million doses of its vaccine in the next two months, if the shot
receives FDA authorization in the coming weeks. Production delays
mean fewer than 20 million J&J doses will likely go out by late April.The Centers for Disease Control urged states to reopen K-
schools as soon as possible, and issued new guidelines for get-
ting children back into classrooms safely. But according to those
guidelines, 89 percent of U.S. children currently live in “red zone”
counties, defined by the CDC as having a test-positivity rate of
10 percent in the last seven days and where the agency says in-
person learning should be limited. Scientists continue to warn that
the more contagious U.K. and South African Covid variants could
soon send U.S. cases skyrocketing; a new study has identified seven
variants that originated in America. It’s not yet known whether
those strains are more infectious.What the columnists said
Covid cases are dropping far faster than health experts had expect-
ed, said Derek Thompson in TheAtlantic.com. Daily new cases are
now below 100,000, and hospitalizations have dropped 50 percent
in a month. “What’s behind the change?” It’s largely because the
post-holidays surge scared many Americans into wearing masks
and hunkering down. But the virus is also finding “fewer welcom-ing hosts.” An estimated “25 percent of
adults have Covid-19 antibodies from
a previous infection,” and 40 million
Americans have received at least one vac-
cine shot. “We’re adding about 10 million
people to this ‘protected’ population every
week,” so half of U.S. adults should have
some protection by spring. Even with
cases declining, we can’t rush students
back into classrooms, said Dr. Leana Wen
in WashingtonPost.com. The CDC lays
out sensible safety measures—“masking,
distancing, handwashing”—but its guide-
lines don’t mandate 6 feet of physical
distancing nor do they require teachers to
be vaccinated. Are the guidelines “based
on the best available science,” or political “expediency”?Something’s wrong with the vaccine data, said Jim Geraghty in
NationalReview.com. This week there appeared to be “anywhere
from 15.4 million to 17.2 million doses either in transit or sitting on
shelves somewhere.” Bad weather caused delays, and some vials are
being held back for second shots, but that doesn’t fully account for
the problem. Many states are simply “unable or unwilling to share
how many doses they receive from manufacturers each week.” With
488,000 Americans already dead of Covid, we can’t afford to have
lifesaving vaccines stuck in the supply chain.“The U.S. vaccine rollout, for all its faults, is ahead of almost every
other country’s,” said Noah Smith in NoahPinion.Substack.com.
Among nations with large populations, only the U.K. is doing better
in terms of doses administered as a percentage of population. And
U.S. manufacturers are also rolling out vaccines faster than their
foreign peers, a process Biden is speeding up through his use of the
Defense Production Act to boost supplies.We might “never reach herd immunity” against the always evolving
Covid-19, said Eric Levitz in NYMag.com, but that doesn’t mean
this crisis will go on forever. The vaccines are incredibly effective
at preventing serious illness and death, and at least Pfizer’s shot
appears to work against all known variants. Perhaps we will need
booster shots every few years to protect us against new strains. But
it is well within our power to turn Covid from a deadly disease to
something no more troublesome than “an endemic common cold.”Administering Covid vaccines in St. Albans, W.Va.Re
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Biden pledges vaccines for all by August
... and how they were covered^ NEWS 5
It wasn’t all bad QA French nun survived the coronavirus to celebrate her 117th
birthday. Sister André of Toulon, who lived through both world
wars and the 1918 flu pandemic, is believed to be the world’s
second-oldest person. Born in 1904, Sister André worked in a
hospital, took care of elders and orphans, and became a nun
at age 40. Last week,
for her special day, she
enjoyed a special menu
of foie gras, baked
Alaska, and red wine—
“one of her secrets of
longevity,” according to a
spokesman at her nurs-
ing home. After a Mass
in her honor she was
treated to champagne,
“because 117 years have
to be toasted.”QWhen a TSA officer at Portland
International Airport was called
over to translate for a Spanish-
speaking family, he learned
that they had been stuck in the
airport overnight. The family had
intended to travel to Portland,
Maine, but a travel agent booked
them a flight to Portland, Ore.
Officer Martin Rios escorted the
family to the ticketing desk and
found that they had just $200, not
enough to fly across the country.
Rios paid for the tickets out of his
own pocket and sent the family
on their way. “I just know that I
didn’t really have it in me to turn
them away,” he said.QThree people stranded on a small
uninhabited island in the Bahamas
were rescued after 33 days. The
two men and a woman, all Cuban
nationals, had been on a boat that
capsized in a storm, forcing them to
swim to the island. They survived
on coconuts and small animals for
nearly five weeks before a U.S. Coast
Guard patrol spotted them waving
a makeshift flag. The crew dropped
food, water, and a radio, then air-
lifted them to safety. “I was amazed
how well they had it together,” said
Lt. Justin Dougherty. “They are
incredibly lucky to be alive.” Miraculous longevity