What happened
Hopes that the end of the pan-
demic is in sight rose this week, as
President Biden announced that
the U.S. will have enough corona-
virus vaccine “for every adult in
America by the end of May”—two
months sooner than previously
projected. With tens of millions
of new doses due to arrive in
coming weeks, the president said,
the federal government will make
immunizing all teachers by the end
of March a priority. Biden acceler-
ated his vaccine timeline after the
FDA gave emergency authoriza-
tion to a third Covid-19 vaccine: a
single-shot regimen from Johnson
& Johnson, which shipped 3.9 million doses this week. With help
from the administration in obtaining supplies and logistics, John-
son & Johnson will make vaccines around the clock, and plans to
produce 94 million doses by June. To speed production, the White
House brokered a historic deal for pharmaceutical giant Merck
to dedicate two of its facilities to making the vaccine of its rival,
Johnson & Johnson. Moderna and Pfizer BioNTech have pledged
to deliver enough of their two-dose vaccines to protect 200 million
Americans by the end of May, meaning there will be enough shots
to cover all 260 million eligible adults.
Over the past week, the pace of vaccinations increased to nearly
2 million doses a day. So far, about 53 million people had received
at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, or about 16 percent of
the adult population. But in a troubling sign, infections appeared to
plateau this week at 67,000 new cases per day after weeks of sharp
declines. There continue to be roughly 2,000 Covid-19 fatalities a
day, bringing the U.S. death toll above
515,000. Texas is suffering more daily
deaths than any state except California,
but Republican Gov. Greg Abbott lifted
Texas’ mask mandate this week and
allowed all businesses to return to full
capacity. “Texas is OPEN 100%,’’ he
tweeted. “EVERYTHING.’’ Mississippi
also dropped all restrictions. Some re-
strictions were eased in Arkansas, North
Carolina, Virginia, California, Massa-
chusetts, and New York.
Health officials warned that relaxed
rules and highly infectious coronavirus
variants could lead to a “fourth wave”
of infections. The U.K. strain now ac-
counts for roughly 10 percent of all U.S.
cases. “At this level of cases, with vari-
ants spreading,” said Centers for Disease
Control director Rochelle Walensky,
“we stand to completely lose the hard-
earned ground we have gained.”
What the editorials said
Abbott thinks coronavirus safety mea-
sures are needed only when people
“are so sick that they are overrun-
ning hospitals,” said the Houston
Chronicle. But mask mandates
actually help businesses stay open
by slowing the virus’ spread, and
lifting them puts unfair pressure on
businesses “to get Billy Bob to com-
ply with basic safety protocols.”The U.S. now has the upper hand
against Covid, said the New York
Post. “It’s absurd to paint it any
other way.” Hospitalizations have
dropped every day since Jan. 13
except for Feb. 17. New U.S. cases
“are a quarter what they were six
weeks ago.” Millions of Americans
who’ve had Covid already have
natural immunity, and with tens of millions more getting vac ci-
nated, the U.S. should start “moving rapidly to normalcy,” restor-
ing jobs, reopening schools, and reclaiming our social lives.What the columnists said
Many Americans are “seesawing” from hope to despair, said Amy
Davidson Sorkin in NewYorker.com. Vaccines are now rolling out
rapidly, but the news about spreading variants is creating new fears
and doubt. However, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine “held up well
in large-scale trials in South Africa,” where an alarming variant
emerged. Still, “joy can be hard to come by,” with relaxed rules
exposing states to fresh outbreaks and the U.S. daily death rate still
“quadruple what it was last July.” But “with luck and vigilance,”
the worst of the pandemic is likely behind us.The virus won’t vanish completely, but “the crisis portion of the
pandemic” is nearly over, said Jim Geraghty in NationalReview
.com. “No one’s going to have to
worry about 6 feet of social distance
at the Fourth of July backyard barbe-
cue.” By summer, “it will be time to
go to baseball games, concerts, and
outdoor festivals.” People will fill
restaurants, movie theaters, churches,
airplanes, and schools, and the “mask
police” will fall silent. “Sounds heav-
enly,” doesn’t it?If that all sounds too dangerous, said
Jonathan Chait in NYMag.com, you
might be suffering from “Zeroism.”
It’s the belief, adopted by many trau-
matized liberals after Trump’s “willful
indifference” to 500,000 deaths, that
we are safe only when there’s zero risk
of infection. Zeroists think vaccinated
people shouldn’t hug and schools
should remain closed unless every
American is inoculated. But in decid-
ing when to return to normal life, we
need to make a rational “cost- benefit”
analysis. Kids desperately need to re-
turn to school, and we all badly need
hugs, friends, and fun. ReutersJohnson & Johnson doses arriving at vaccination site in HoustonTHE WEEK March 12, 2021
4 NEWS The main stories...
Vaccines ramping up rapidly
Illustration by Howard McWilliam.
Cover photos from AP (2), GettyWhat next?
The U.S. won’t achieve herd immunity if millions
of Americans refuse to be vaccinated, said Derek
Thompson in TheAtlantic.com. “One-third of
American adults” say they don’t want the Covid-
shot “or are undecided about whether they’ll get
one.” They might be worried by stories of people
feeling sick after shots, or by online conspiracy
theories, or by U.S. medicine’s history of racist
exploitation, like the Tuskegee syphilis study. To
overcome vaccine hesitancy, experts say, we can’t
dismiss skeptics as “idiots.” Doctors and trusted
leaders must engage with their fears, and use real-
world evidence to explain why these vaccines are
safe and will give them their freedom back. Some
people may wonder which vaccine to get, said
Dr. Bruce Lee in The New York Times. The Johnson
& Johnson vaccine was 72 percent effective in
U.S. clinical trials, whereas Pfizer’s and Moderna’s
vaccines were more than 90 percent effective. But
J&J’s vaccine was 100 percent effective at prevent-
ing severe illness and death. All three shots are
miracles. “Take whatever is available to you first.”