A Washington Post survey of the 20 largest school districts found that few are offering robust coronavirus screening amid vague guidelines and a surge of cases that few anticipated.
Expert Say Booster Shots Not Needed Yet
Axios: “COVID-19 vaccine booster doses are not necessary right now based on the current evidence, international public health experts — including two FDA vaccine leaders who are leaving the agency this year — wrote a new paper in The Lancet.”
Fauci Would Mandate Vaccines for Air Travel
Dr. Anthony Fauci to The Skimm: “I would support that, if you want to get on a plane and travel with other people that you should be vaccinated.”
Trump Blames Democrats for Vaccine Hesitancy
Former President Donald Trump blamed Democrats in a Fox News interview for the hesitancy of some Americans to get Covid-19 vaccines.
Said Trump: “If you remember, when I was president, there were literally lines of people wanting to take it. Now, you have a different situation, and it’s very bad.”
He added: “Of course, they famously said, if Trump came up with it, I’ll never take it. They disparaged the vaccine, and now they wonder why people aren’t wanting to take it? It’s a disgrace.”
GOP Seethes Over Biden’s Vaccine Mandate
New York Times: “Resistance to vaccine mandates was once a fringe position in both parties, more the realm of misinformed celebrities than mainstream political thought. But the fury over Mr. Biden’s mandates shows how a once-extreme stance has moved to the center of the Republican Party. The governors’ opposition reflects the anger and fear about the vaccine among constituents now central to their base, while ignoring longstanding policy and legal precedent in favor of similar vaccination requirements.”
U.S. Lags In Vaccinations Among G7 Countries
The New York Times reports the U.S. is now lagging behind the UK, Canada, France, Germany and Italy — and just above Japan — in vaccination rates, though trend lines suggest the U.S. will soon slip to last place.
How the GOP Became the Anti-Vaccine Mandate Party
Aaron Blake: “Many things have conspired to bring us to this moment in American politics, in which more than 600,000 deaths are apparently insufficient in the minds of some for such a step. But perhaps the turning point came in Texas in 2007.”
“Out of the blue, a conservative Republican governor named Rick Perry signed an executive order. The order made his state the first in the country to mandate a vaccine for a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, the human papillomavirus (or HPV), for girls entering the sixth grade.”
“The response was swift, and the GOP-controlled state legislature soon overrode him. But the conservative concerns often pertained less to the safety of the vaccine or the appropriateness of the such mandates — as they do today — and more to both the limited scale of the problem and to the idea that the vaccine would encourage promiscuity in young girls.”
Alabama Man Dies After 43 Hospitals Couldn’t Admit Him
The family of a man who died of heart issues in Mississippi is asking people to get vaccinated for COVID-19 after 43 hospitals across three states were unable to accept him because of full cardiac ICUs, USA Today reports.
Florida Appeals Court Allows Mask Mandate Ban
Just two days after a Florida judge allowed school districts to impose mask mandates, an appeals court judge reversed the ruling, the Miami Herald reports.
“The order means that pending the outcome of an appeal, the state can continue to punish school officials who impose mask mandates without a parent opt-out.”
Vaccination Rates Correlate to the 2020 Vote
Philip Bump: “The chain of correlation here is indisputable: Republicans have been less concerned about the virus, less likely to embrace practices such as masking, more likely to express opposition to vaccination and (obviously) voted more heavily for Trump — and now, after vaccinations have been made broadly available, states that are seeing the most new cases and deaths are states that are less heavily vaccinated and were more supportive of Trump last year.”
Unvaccinated Are 11 Times More Likely to Die of Covid-19
A CDC study found that unvaccinated people are 11 times more likely to die of Covid-19 than those who’ve gotten vaccinated.
GOP Threats to Vaccine Mandates Unlikely to Succeed
“Nearly two dozen Republican governors, as well as the GOP itself, have vowed to file suits, or take other actions, to block President Joe Biden’s newly announced vaccination mandates — but legal experts say they’ll have a hard time successfully making their case in court,” NBC News reports.
“Generally speaking, it is true that public health powers are delegated to the states, experts said. But the Constitution also gives the federal government broad powers to regulate certain matters when it perceives that states and localities are not able to do so, or are doing so adequately.”
“In this case, experts explained, Biden’s mandates pass muster because he is filtering them through the lenses of workplace safety and through the Constitutional language of federal spending powers.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“I am so disappointed that particularly some Republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids, so cavalier with the health of their communities.”
— President Joe Biden, quoted by Politico, lamenting that Covid-19 vaccines have been politicized.
Biden Signals Effort to Cut Drug Prices
“The Biden administration on Thursday endorsed an aggressive proposal to limit prices for prescription drugs, calling for the government to negotiate with drug makers on prices and applying those prices not just to Medicare but to all drug purchasers in the country,” the New York Times reports.
“The administration cannot make such large changes on its own; it amounts to a signal to congressional Democrats. Democratic leaders in Congress have suggested that they hope to regulate prices in some way as part of the $3.5 trillion legislative package now being considered.”
Biden’s Mandate Is Good Politics But There Are Risks
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Flashback Quote of the Day
“Real liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own, whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others.”
— Justice John Marshall Harlan, in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, in which the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that vaccine mandates were constitutional.
GOP Governor Praises Biden’s Vaccine Mandate
Despite the threat of lawsuits from several Republican governors, it’s worth noting that Vermont Gov. Phil Scott (R) is praising President Biden’s new vaccination policies.
Said Scott: “I appreciate the President’s continued prioritization of vaccination and the country’s recovery as we move forward. As Vermont’s experience shows, vaccines work and save lives. They are the best and fastest way to move past this pandemic.”
TSA Doubles Fines for Not Wearing Masks on Planes
Air travelers who refuse to wear masks can now be fined up to $3,000, CBS News reports.
The Transportation Security Administration announced it will double fines for those who flout federal mask mandates for air travel.
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