United States of America eSeries: 'It was just magical'

'It was just magical'

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July 12, 2021

Stephen Collinson and Shelby Rose

'It was just magical'

Most of the world can't get one dose of coronavirus vaccine. In the United States, there's a raging debate about a third.

Public health officials raced to tamp down fears that vaccine efficacy is waning, after Pfizer suddenly said a booster shot was needed 6 to 12 months after the existing two shot regimen was completed. The announcement caused alarm, especially since normal life is beginning to return in the US — notwithstanding the lightning spread of the Delta variant — and no one wants schools closed, fun interrupted and lockdowns returning. The government's top infectious diseases specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, went on three Sunday political talk shows to calm the situation. "Given the data and the information we have, we do not need to give people a third shot, a boost," Fauci said on CNN's "State of the Union."

The mixed messaging is a worry for multiple reasons.

First, even if the vaccine efficacy is dropping off, research shows that the shots are still hugely successful in preventing serious illness or death from Covid-19. But any suggestion that vaccines are not as effective as believed will only make it more difficult to win over skeptics.

The second issue concerns what happens if officials eventually change their guidance. The FDA and the CDC make decisions based on science. It is quite likely that once a critical mass of data accumulates that they might recommend a booster, especially since an updated shot could better protect against variants. But critics who argue that public health experts are making it all up as they go along will pounce. When Fauci, for instance, initially said science didn't support widespread mask-wearing and then changed his mind based on data, he was pilloried by right-wing critics who have long demagogued the crisis.

If you laid a map of least vaccinated states over the US electoral map in 2020, it would be almost identical. In almost all low-vaccination states, Donald Trump — who spent months discrediting government science — beat Joe Biden last year. Now, prominent Trump backers claim that government vaccine programs are akin to Nazism and recall the tyranny of the Soviet Union.

The flap over the Pfizer vaccine is only going to deepen the pool of suspicion and offer new openings for political opportunists more concerned with boosting their careers rather than immunity to Covid-19.

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Israel announced it will immediately offer those who are immunocompromised a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

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The above video shows the bronze statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson being removed on Saturday from two public parks in Charlottesville, Virginia, almost four years after violence that erupted at a white supremacy march left one person dead.

'It was just magical'

British business mogul Richard Branson said he had dreamt of being an astronaut since he was a kid after beating out other billionaires and becoming the first person to fly into space on his own space plane.

"Honestly, nothing can prepare you for the view of earth from space. The whole thing, it was just magical," he said after returning to Earth in New Mexico.

Postcard from Port-au-Prince

The FBI has landed.

As rumors swirl around the murder of Haiti's president Jovenel Moise last week, official reinforcements have been sent from Colombia and the United States to assist in the investigation, with agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation landing today. Their arrival is hoped to boost public confidence in the interim government's ability to solve the increasingly murky affair, several people in capital city Port-au-Prince tell Meanwhile's Caitlin Hu.

Haitian authorities suspect a group of 28 foreigners — 26 Colombian mercenaries and two US citizens — of committing the brutal nighttime attack and then fled into the affluent hillside neighborhood of Petion Ville under cover of night. But the biggest and most important questions remain unanswered. Who masterminded the attack? Why? And how did every member of the president's security detail manage to not only survive the attack, but without injuries?

"I don't think mercenaries, former Colombian military, would just get in the country. It's obvious. Just in the country and kill the president? Where did they get the cars that they were driving. How did they get in the country?" Haiti elections minister Mathias Pierre told Meanwhile on Sunday.

"There's a lot of things that don't make sense for foreigners to try and do by themselves. So I think, and we believe, that there are masterminds behind the crime," he said, emphasizing the importance of US assistance in clarifying that.

In addition to sending FBI and Department of Homeland Security agents to assist in the investigation, a delegation of US officials from the National Security Council, State Department, and Department of Justice will also visit the Caribbean nation — an extraordinary measure even for a country that often sees Haiti as its backyard. Colombia is going even further, sending its own director of national intelligence over the weekend to dig into the affair.

The result is a trust in the investigation results that otherwise might not have been granted by critics and government opponents in the country. The influential opposition politician Steven Benoit, a former legislator, told Meanwhile that he didn't believe any information released by the government and that he wasn't ruling out an inside job from the highest level officials now leading the country — but that he would respect the results of an probe involving the FBI.

"The good news is that the FBI is here, the equivalent of the Colombian FBI arrived yesterday. These are professionals. And I hope that before Monday morning…the truth will come out," he said.

Thanks for reading.

On Monday, Biden meets at the White House with elected officials and local leaders to discuss reducing gun and violent crimes. An EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting takes place in Brussels. German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosts Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Berlin. NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, will meet Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.