Vaccines ramping up rapidly
What happened
Hopes that the end of the pandemic is in sight rose this week, as President Biden announced that the U.S. will have enough coronavirus 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 accelerated his vaccine timeline after the FDA gave emergency authorization 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, Johnson & 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 restrictions were eased in Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, California, Massachusetts, 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 accounts for roughly 10 percent of all U.S. cases. “At this level of cases, with variants spreading,” said Centers for Disease Control director Rochelle Walensky,
“we stand to completely lose the hardearned ground we have gained.”
What the editorials said
Abbott thinks coronavirus safety measures are needed only when people
“are so sick that they are overrunning 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 comply 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 vaccinated, the U.S. should start “moving rapidly to normalcy,” restoring 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.