“America’s coronavirus outbreak is rapidly improving as the Delta wave recedes, and vaccines for kids — which could become available within weeks — will help the situation improve even further,” Axios reports.
“Nationwide, the U.S. is now averaging about 79,000 new cases per day — a 22% drop over the past two weeks.”
“Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered people to stay off work for at least a week while Latvia has introduced a monthlong Covid-19 lockdown as deaths climb, driving renewed fears of another wave of infections as winter sets in,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Russia has faced an uphill battle in curbing the spread of the virus, in large part because of the laid-back approach of many Russians to mitigation measures such as social distancing and wearing face coverings in public.”
“There is also widespread skepticism over vaccinations.”
Hawaii became the first state to administer coronavirus vaccines to 90% of its residents aged 12 and older, Forbes reports.
Seven other states have 12-and-over vaccination rates above 85%: Massachusetts (89.2%), Vermont (88.6%), Connecticut (88.4%), Rhode Island (86.9%), New Mexico (85.8%), New Jersey (85.3%) and Pennsylvania (85.3%).
On the other end of the spectrum, West Virginia (55.7%), Wyoming (58%) and Mississippi (59.8%) have inoculated fewer eligible residents than any other states.
A new Quinnipiac poll finds that more than a year and a half since the pandemic hit the United States, 81% of Americans do not expect life to return to normal in the U.S. anytime soon, while 26% say life will never return to normal.
When given a number of words and asked whether or not those words described how they are feeling, most Americans say they are disappointed (62%), followed by hopeful (50%), emotionally exhausted (46%), worried (43%), angry (41%), and indifferent (24%).
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is set to announce a coronavirus vaccine requirement for all municipal employees, the New York Post reports.
Virginian-Pilot: “Almost half a year ago, Northam said publicly he had prolonged smell and taste loss following his mild illness. He intended that as a wakeup call for Virginians on the interminable consequences of the coronavirus. Vaccines, which weren’t available when he got sick in September 2020, are the best prevention, he said. But perhaps more surprising was when he recently brought up his symptoms again: Even now, more than a year since his case, he hasn’t regained those senses.”
“A Miami school that made headlines for saying it would penalize teachers who got the Covid-19 vaccine is now requiring students who get vaccinated to remain home for 30 days after each dose,” WSVN reports.
Former U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb called for “urgent research” into a mutation of the delta variant — known as delta plus — following a surge in Covid-19 cases in the U.K., Bloomberg reports.
Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) encouraged a group of high school students to not wear masks in school, saying during his visit the administration “can’t stop everyone,” the Rappahannock News reports.
Said Good: “If nobody in Rappahannock complies with the mask mandate, they can’t stop everyone. If I was ya’ll, I’d say none of ya’ll wear a mask. What are they gonna do? They’re still going to have school.”
A new Politico/Morning Consult tracking poll finds just 26% of Americans say Congress has done an excellent or good job handling the pandemic.
Why this matters: “Talking about all the big bills lawmakers have passed on the pandemic may not resonate with voters the way they hope they will.”
“International travelers fully vaccinated against the coronavirus who have been barred from entering the United States during the pandemic will be able to enter the country on Nov. 8, marking an end to restrictions that had walled off tourists and relatives seeking to visit their families,” the New York Times reports.
“Unvaccinated foreigners will be broadly barred from entering the United States, although the White House official said there will be limited exemptions, including for young children.”
“The Democrats’ most significant attempt to rein in health care costs in the private market— specifically prescription drug costs — is increasingly likely to fail,” Axios reports.
“U.S. health care costs have ballooned over the last few decades. But there’s fierce industry resistance to allowing the government to step in and regulate private market prices. Plenty of lawmakers hate the idea as well.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) questioned why the “fascist NBA won’t let Kyrie Irving play for refusing a vaccine. But yet they still let Magic Johnson play with HIV.”
As the Daily Beast notes, she entirely “ignores the fact that Covid-19 is airborne and spread through respiratory droplets, while HIV is passed through direct contact with certain bodily fluids, including blood and semen.”
After nine months with no leader, President Biden is expected to nominate Robert Califf to lead the FDA, returning to the agency where he served as commissioner for less than a year at the end of the Obama presidency, the Washington Post reports.
The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that about 90,000 deaths from Covid-19 over the past four months were entirely preventable.
Philip Bump: How many thousands of people are choosing death over vaccination?
“We tend to think of pandemics and epidemics as episodic. But we are living in the Covid-19 era, not the Covid-19 crisis. There will be a lot of changes that are substantial and persistent. We won’t look back and say, ‘That was a terrible time, but it’s over.’ We will be dealing with many of the ramifications of Covid-19 for decades, for decades.”
— Allan Brandt, a historian of science and medicine at Harvard University, quoted by the New York Times.
The Transportation Security Administration says 40% of its workforce, including screeners, remain unvaccinated against Covid-19 as the November 22 deadline looms, CNN reports.
NBC News interviewed three of the original Havana Syndrome victims.
Said one career foreign service officer: “I felt like I was being struck with something. Pain that I have never felt before in my life … mostly in my head and in my eyes. … It was as if I had been seized by some invisible hand and I couldn’t move.”
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Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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