United States of America eSeries: Back to Masks, as Uncertainty Reigns

Back to Masks, as Uncertainty Reigns

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Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

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July 28, 2021

Back to Masks, as Uncertainty Reigns

The CDC's recommended return to indoor masking in areas with high Covid-19 transmission, even for the vaccinated, points to a state of pandemic limbo, with some critical questions unanswered—many having to do with vaccines.

Will vaccines be mandated in various settings, like school and work? The Wall Street Journal's editorial board writes that we'll likely need to wait for the FDA, before we have an answer: The FDA has authorized Covid-19 vaccines for "emergency use," but the agency has taken its time weighing their full approval. Such a sign-off could pave the way for more requirements, or at least remove an "excuse not to get vaccinated," the Journal writes.

At The New Yorker, Isaac Chotiner talks with Brown University public-health dean Dr. Ashish Jha about the state of the pandemic, and Jha's comments reflect a striated reality. Jha, who is vaccinated, says he would wear a mask in a coffee shop in southwest Missouri (where vaccination rates are relatively low and infections are many) but not in Vermont (where the opposite is true). He remains puzzled by how long it's taking the FDA to fully approve vaccines and rues the misinformation that has "bombarded" young people about the level of risk they face.

The Counterpoint on Tunisia

After Tunisian President Kais Saied invoked an emergency provision in the country's constitution to dismiss the Prime Minister and suspend parliament for 30 days, following protests over the government's handling of Covid-19, analysts have lamented the apparent democratic backslide in the Arab Spring's lone success story.

But others are questioning that narrative. At Foreign Policy, Steven A. Cook warns the US government that it would be wrong to make support for Tunisia contingent on the state of its democracy. At the Middle East Institute, Fadil Aliriza writes that Saied's moves are being met with support by some of those voicing discontent. "Some have tried to direct antigovernment protests and sentiment solely toward Ennahdha"—the Islamist party that controls a plurality of seats in parliament, and of which Saied is not a member—"perhaps saving the rest of the state system or other parts of the regime from blame," Aliriza writes.

Assessing Cuba's Protests

The extraordinary protests seen in Cuba earlier this month have subsided, Javier Corrales and Scott Brasesco write for Americas Quarterly, but they "raised the question of what causes uprisings in authoritarian contexts. Did they occur because the regime relaxed a bit, offering new opportunities for disaffected groups to mobilize? Or because the regime hardened political restrictions, causing civil society to protest in a desperate gasp for air? Cuba's case confirms the latter thesis resoundingly. The protests occurred not because the regime was giving citizens greater spaces, but precisely because it was taking them away. It would be a mistake for Cuban leaders to believe that further restrictions will solve the unrest."

In a reflective essay for the World Politics Review, erstwhile Latin America correspondent Howard W. French writes that "it is hard to escape the conviction that [the Cuban government] has failed to find a formula for economic revival and prosperity for the island's people, and that is not solely, and some would say not even mostly, a matter of the American embargo." The Internet has facilitated dissent, while "Black Cubans seem to have found their voices, accounting for much of the energy in the protests … [and] adding to the imperative of economic reinvention and expanded space for free expression. The Cuban state has long been in denial about the existence of racial problems in the country, but one way or another, whether through a degree of continuity or outright rupture, a new sort of revolution seems unavoidable: one that takes account of the longstanding underrepresentation of Black and mixed-race people—and actually does something about it."

'The Time Tax'

What does one have to do to get some public services around here? A lot, writes The Atlantic's Annie Lowrey, in an essay decrying the administrative burden that citizens face. Almost certainly falling harder on poor, sick, and racial-minority Americans, this "time tax" is levied by a system that seems to discourage people from obtaining government services, simply by making it more of a hassle.

Focusing mainly on the hours of phone time it takes to navigate things like welfare, public housing, and health care, Lowrey's most striking example comes from Michigan: When the state's Health and Human Services Department undertook a reform effort six years ago, "the state's central benefit application ran for 18,000 words, and many of the questions on it were invasive, unnecessary, and confusing. To help thin it down, Michigan hired a small nonprofit design firm called Civilla. 'It was designed for federal and state compliance,' Michael Brennan, a founder of Civilla, told me. 'It was designed around lawsuits. It was designed around technology. It was not designed around people.' To demonstrate the point, the team at Civilla had a group of local politicians sit down and do the paperwork themselves. 'We handed them this 42-page application,' he told me. 'They thought, Oh, it will be 15 minutes. Then they'd get to the question: "Tell me the date of the conception of your children."'"