Fareed: Politics Is Blocking America’s Way out of the Pandemic

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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 23, 2021

Fareed: Politics Is Blocking America's Way out of the Pandemic

"There is one striking thing that distinguishes this pandemic from all previous ones in history—the speed with which humankind came up with a vaccine," Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column. "But what science has given, politics seems to be taking away. Despite having ample supplies of the vaccine, the United States is stuck with roughly 60 percent of the adult population fully vaccinated, ensuring that the pandemic will linger, perhaps forever. Given the tools to end this tragedy, we are choosing to live with it."

That's because Republicans, in particular, are reluctant to get vaccinated, Fareed writes, noting that as of June, 86% of Democrats but just 52% of Republicans had received at least one vaccine dose and that deep-red, pro-Trump states are seeing some of the lowest rates of uptake.

With some Republican officials having signaled opposition to vaccine mandates in various contexts, for instance, Fareed writes that the party has tolerated scientific skepticism for too long. "Republicans say that they are for economic growth and against lockdowns. But it is the Republican Party and the conservative media, by their actions and negligence, that are endangering the United States' economy—and, far more importantly, the lives of its people."

Tokyo Adrift

110: That's the number of Olympic Covid-19 infections Tokyo's Olympic organizing committee has reported since July 1, including (at the time of this writing) 106 people with Olympic accreditation and four announced by municipal authorities hosting training camps. (Known athlete infections include Czech beach-volleyball and table-tennis players, a Chilean taekwondo contestant, a US beach-volleyball player, South African soccer players, and a Dutch skateboarder.)

Despite International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach's bold assertion last week that there will be "zero" risk of Olympic participants and staff spreading Covid-19 to the rest of Tokyo and Japan, widespread public concerns have seemed well founded: Japanese virologist Hitoshi Oshitani recently told the MIT Technology Review's Mia Sato that in all of Japan's previous Covid-19 waves, the virus had spread from Tokyo to other parts of the country. "It's obvious that the bubble system is kind of broken," Kenji Shibuya, who formerly directed the Institute for Population Health at King's College London and who has called for the games to be postponed, tells Reuters.

The corporate and political fallout has been swift, writes Tokyo-based Nikkei Asia columnist William Pesek, noting broad public opposition to holding the games as scheduled, Toyota's decision not to run Olympics-themed ads in the country, and the decisions by more major Japanese companies not to send executives to the opening ceremonies. "Every callous word from the IOC chief threatens to hurt Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's reelection ambitions come October," Pesek writes. The pandemic certainly hasn't helped Japan's Olympics-economic picture: Prep work and new stadiums famously cost billions for host countries, and Taku Tamaki writes for the Conversation that cost estimates soared during the yearlong postponement, while the absence of Olympics-related tourism revenue has severely attenuated the financial upside.

Is a Taliban Takeover Inevitable?

Not according to Seth G. Jones, who argues in a Foreign Affairs essay that the US can maintain a limited but effective role in helping the Afghan National Security Forces stay afloat against an encroaching Taliban—by supplying money, CIA paramilitary units, drone coverage, and air support from piloted fighter-bomber sorties.

All of that, in Jones's view, would keep the Taliban from seizing full control and Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist haven. The US may be out of options in the region, when it comes to basing rights—Foreign Policy's Amy Mackinnon writes that Central Asian countries will be reluctant to host US forces, given Russia's influence and desires—but Jones writes that having kept up an active partnership with Afghanistan's forces will help if America ever needs to go back, as it did in Iraq in 2014.

Living in a '3°C World'

This summer's extreme weather—which, so far, has included a heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, deadly floods in Western Europe, and more of the latter in China—have underscored our need to adapt to the dangerous vagaries of a hotter planet, The Economist writes. Even if global emissions-reduction efforts "increased dramatically enough to meet the 2°C goal" for average temperature increase, as set in the Paris climate accords six years ago, "it would not stop forests from burning today; prairies would still dry out tomorrow, rivers break their banks and mountain glaciers disappear."

Luckily, adaptation is relatively appealing, as "[p]eople can clearly see the need for it. When a country invests in flood defences it benefits its own citizens above all others—there is no free-rider problem, as there could be for emissions reduction." But it's also wise to examine one of the more drastic ideas out there, the magazine suggests, pointing to "solar geoengineering," which entails making atmospheric "clouds or particle layers" more reflective to work against the greenhouse effect. Something like that, the magazine writes, might affect different countries differently, would introduce a perverse incentive to keep emitting carbon in the near term, and is broadly a different can of worms.