Vaccinated Americans still waiting for health guidance
Soph McNaney already a stalwart for Terps lacrosse
More than 27 million Americans fully vaccinated against the coronavirus will have to keep waiting for guidance from federal health officials for what they should and shouldn’t do.
The Biden administration said Friday it’s focused on getting the guidance right and accommodating emerging science, but the delays add to the uncertainty around bringing about an end to the pandemic as the nation’s virus fatigue grows.
“These are complex issues and the science is rapidly evolving,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said. “We are making sure and taking time to get this right and we will be releasing this guidance soon.”
Such guidance would address a flood of questions coming in from people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19: Do I still have to wear a mask? Can I go to a bar now? Can I see my grandchildren?
The need has slowly grown since January, when the first Americans began to complete the two-dose series of COVID19 vaccines then available. Now, more than half of people 65 and older have received at least one shot, according to Andy Slavitt, a senior administration adviser on the pandemic.
Worried about persistently high caseloads and deaths, the Biden administration has condemned efforts to relax states’ virus restrictions and pleaded with the public for several months more patience.
The caution has drawn critics, who point to the administration’s own warnings that “fatigue is winning” as evidence that they need to be more optimistic about the path ahead to secure the cooperation of those who are yet to be vaccinated.
“I think it’s going to be overly proscriptive and conservative and that’s the wrong message,” former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told CNBC Wednesday of the forthcoming CDC guidance. “If we continue to be very proscriptive and not give people a realistic vision for what a better future is going to look like, they’re going to start to ignore the public health guidance.”
Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the Division of Health Policy and Public Health, encouraged the CDC to be clearer about when and how it plans to produce guidelines for the vaccinated.
“Making the decision to go by the science is also making the decision that you’re going to have to make a decision, which is really difficult when the science isn’t settled,” he told the AP. “They’re drinking from a firehose of science, and sometimes, it gets messy.”
Over 54 million Americans have received at least one dose of vaccine, and nearly 28 million have gotten the recommended two doses. The single-dose Johnson & Johnson shot soon will add a couple of million more Americans with questions about what new freedoms they can safely enjoy.
“I do hope I get to see my great-grandchildren more,” said Rolando Solar, 92, who received his second dose Wednesday in Miami. “But I know things will not go back to normal, and for an old man like me, this is as good as it will be.”
Tami Katz-Freiman, 65, of Miami, got her second dose three weeks ago and plans to watch the Miami Film Festival virtually Sunday at the home of unvaccinated friends. All will wear masks.
“We didn’t have to discuss it with each other because it’s very clear to me that when there is a doubt and you don’t have a CDC straightforward rule, you better be on the safe side and take care for yourself,” Katz-Freiman said.
In the insulated world of Washington politics, raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour, where it has been stuck since July 24, 2009, appears to be a hopeless endeavor, even though the cost of living has increased by 20% during that time. The $15 minimum hourly pay that pragmatic Democrats have tried to smuggle into the latest virus relief bill is proving to be just another mirage shimmering with false promise across a desert of need (“COVID-19 relief bill updates: Minimum wage hike all but dead in Senate,” March 1).
The cruel irony is that even a $15 hourly wage is not a living wage in half of the United States and certainly not in Baltimore. The Economic Policy Institute figures that a family of two adults and two children living in the city would need an annual salary of $77,000 to cover the cost of rent, food, utilities, transportation, child care, health, insurance, taxes and incidentals like clothing. The rent in this model is set at $1,075 a month, but I was hard put to find even a one-bedroom apartment for rent in Baltimore for that price, let alone a two-bedroom. Even with both parents working full time at the $15 hourly rate, they could only reach a gross income of $62,400 and so would be hard put to pay for anything except the bare basics with health insurance out of their reach.
But roughly one-third of households in the U.S. are headed by single parents and a majority of those work in minimum wage jobs. They are the “front-line workers” suddenly recognized as “heroes” that keep the rest of us supplied with essential services, though firms are already balking at continuing to offer hazard pay to them. At this time, depending on their workplace, they earn between $8 and $12 an hour with an exceptional employer going as high as $15 or even above. Still, in 2018, 23% of families in Baltimore lived in in poverty, defined as less than $26,200 for a family of four and $21,720 for a family of three.
For families whose income falls below that level there still exists a tattered social network with modest supplementary food assistance and health care for minor children as well as subsidized insurance premiums under the Affordable Care
Act. But even with a $15 wage and full employment, a single worker’s income of $31,200 before taxes would fall far short of covering even a family’s most basic needs like food and rent, and the most minor disruption or accident could have catastrophic consequences such as homelessness.
Can the politicians not do the math, or does the myth of the Black welfare queen still blind them to the economic reality in which 37% of white families in the U.S. live below the poverty line? Instead of a minimal $15, a more realistic amount would be $20 or $25 an hour combined with subsidized child care to keep children safe and parents working. But that would get us close to Scandinavian standards and socialism — and we can’t have that, can we?
COLLEGE PARK — The Maryland men’s lacrosse team might have found a quick answer to a possible long-term problem.
Entering the 2021 season the Terps two areas of concern were in goal and finding defensemen. After two games, there are fewer conversations about the goalie. Sophomore Logan McNaney has made it official now: It’s his job to lose.
McNaney has recorded 22 saves and a .579 save percentage in No. 3 Maryland’s two victories, including a career-high 16 stops last week in a 13-7 win against Penn State.
Maryland (2-0) will host Johns Hopkins (1-1) on Saturday at 1 p.m. and the Blue Jays have several outstanding offensive players in Joey Epstein, Connor DeSimone and Cole Williams. But McNaney has Hopkins coach Peter Milliman’s attention.
“He’s a savvy player,” Milliman said. “He’s able to read shooters pretty well. He anticipates locations and things like that well. I think he can have an impact on the game if you let him. We just need to be a smart and disciplined shooting team to compete with that.”
McNaney, out of Salisbury School and Corning, New York, became a focal point after the Penn State victory, even though he started the final two games of the abbreviated 2020 season, winning games against Notre Dame and Albany.
He played reasonably well against Michigan, a 20-9 win, in this season’s opener, but gave up six goals in the final period which showed a lack of concentration. But he was outstanding against the Nittany Lions.
Nine of his 16 saves were in the second half, six in the fourth period. He cleared the ball well and found his outlets immediately. He positioned himself nicely to stop shots and showed no fear of coming out of the goal.
“I was impressed with his fundamentals,” said Mark Dixon, a lacrosse analyst for the Big Ten Network and ESPN. “He is technically sound, efficient, reacts and doesn’t guess. In order to beat McNaney you have to earn good shots and truly beat him.
“He seemed to be in the right spot all night long to give
himself chances to make saves,” said Dixon of McNaney’s Penn State performance. “Seemed unflappable. Hard to believe he was only making his fourth career start. He faced an early barrage of shots and didn’t flinch. Body language was the same all game long.”
The calmness is one of McNaney’s main attributes. Even when he gives up goals or teams make a scoring run, there are stories about how he will tell jokes to his teammates. Maybe it’s because he is a throwback.
He comes from a lacrosse family. His father, Mark, played defense in college and his mother, Kimberly, started the girls program at Corning East High School. Another thing McNaney learned from his father was the love of classic rock music.
Before games, he listens to AC/DC, Metallica and even Led Zeppelin. Goalies often live in strange worlds. Welcome to McNaney’s.
“My dad listened to it,” McNaney said. “I don’t like the mainstream stuff. My friends make fun of me, but I make fun of them too. But I’ve always tried to say cool, calm and not let things phase me too much. I have always tried not to get too ahead of myself, not try to get too aggressive or down on myself when I get scored on.”
McNaney was even relaxed last season when Maryland coach John Tillman decided to start him in what ended as the final two games of the season because of the coronavirus. McNaney had already started thinking about being redshirted even though only four games had been played.
And it’s not like Maryland was playing a subpar team. The Fighting Irish have long been a national power. The Terps won, 14-9, as McNaney finished with 10 saves and eventually became full time over then sophomore Chris Brandau. In those final two starts, McNaney had 21 saves and finished with a .488 save percentage.
He hasn’t looked back since, only stepped up.
“It was not the ideal situation to go home to,” McNaney said. “We were kind of on a roll. Up until I started, I was ready to redshirt, it was kind of in the back of my mind. But I think I got the best out of the situation.”
That’s because when he wasn’t starting, McNaney was playing on the scout team and facing the No. 1 offense. Back then as he does now, McNaney takes extra shots either before or after practice, most notably from attackman Jared Bernhardt and midfielder Logan Wisnauskas, two of the team’s top scorers.
McNaney has to work extra hard. He is only 5-feet-8 and 170 pounds, so he doesn’t fill the cage like big goalies. He is lefthanded, which usually gives him an advantage for about a quarter because most goalies are right-handed.
McNaney also is driven by the tradition at Maryland of having All-America goalies like Niko Amato, Kyle Bernlohr and Dan Morris. The best of the bunch was Brian Dougherty, who played for the Terps in the mid- 1990s.
“It’s been a good season so far, still a lot of things to work on,” McNaney said. “There is a tradition here and those guys are always giving me some great tips. There is a legacy that has been passed down, and I’m definitely trying to add on to that. There is a little bit of pressure, but I try not to get caught up on that. I just focus on myself.”