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October 27, 2021 - Brief Issue 257
The Coronavirus Daily Brief is a daily news and analysis roundup edited by New America’s International Security Program and Arizona State University.
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Top Headlines
FDA Panel Recommends Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine for Children Ages 5-11 (Health & Science)
Mexico Resists Vaccinating Children (Around the World)
Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria See Record Daily Deaths (Around the World)
Brazilian Congressional Panel Votes in Favor of Criminal Charges for Bolsonaro (Around the World)
Australia Facing Skills Shortage as Country Reopens (Around the World)
Birx: Trump “Distracted” from Covid Response by Election; 130,000 Lives Could Have Been Saved (U.S. Government & Politics)
Internal Immigration Arrests at Lowest Level in a Decade (U.S. Government & Politics)
Consumer Confidence Rises (U.S. Economy)
Study: Financial Incentives to Get Vaccinated Don’t Work (U.S. Society)
Health & Science
There have been 45,616,157 coronavirus cases in the United States, and 738,883 people have died (Johns Hopkins). The United States has administered 415,012,026 vaccine doses, with 66.5% of all Americans having received at least one vaccine dose and 57.5% fully vaccinated. Among adults aged 18 or older 79.6% have received at least one dose, and 69% are fully vaccinated (U.S. CDC). 7.2% of fully vaccinated Americans have received a booster shot. Worldwide, there have been 244,644,699 cases of coronavirus, with 4,965,597 deaths.
FDA Panel Recommends Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine for Children Ages 5-11
In an almost unanimous vote on Tuesday, independent advisors to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended the Pfizer-BioNTech covid vaccine for children aged five to 11 (NYT). The advisors weighed the vaccine’s effectiveness, the social and physical effects of the pandemic, and the potential risk for rare but severe side effects. Data from Pfizer-BioNTech indicate the vaccine is 90.7% effective at preventing symptomatic illness among this age group.
The benefits of vaccination “clearly outweigh” the risks of myocarditis and pericarditis, FDA scientists concluded in an analysis, an assessment the independent advisers agreed with. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), highlighted the harms of the pandemic. “Far from being spared from this harm of Covid-19, in the five-to-11 year-old age range, there have been over 1.9m infections, over 8,300 hospitalizations (about a third of which have required intensive care unit stays), and over 2,500 cases of multisystem inflammatory disorder from Covid-19,” Marks said (Guardian). Nearly 100 children in this age group have died, making it the eighth leading cause of death in the past year for this group. Children between five and 11 have one of the highest case rates of any age group, accounting for about one in 10 of all Covid cases in the country. They are also the most frequently affected by MIS-C, an inflammatory disorder brought on by Covid-19 that affects organs. Further, the effects of the pandemic are unequal among children, with Black, Hispanic, and Native American children at greater risk for developing MIS-C or dying from Covid-19.
It is expected that the FDA will follow the independent panel’s advice in the coming days and expand access to vaccines to all but the youngest Americans.
Around the World
Mexico Resists Vaccinating Children
As other countries rush to approve pediatric vaccines, Mexico continues to resist calls to vaccinate its youth -- even in the face of a court order to do so. Mexico’s medical regulators have approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for emergency use in children 12 and older but the government has refused to administer the shots to most minors. Hundreds of parents have filed multiple lawsuits against the government to try to spur officials to vaccinate children and this month, one of those lawsuits resulted in a judge ordering Mexico’s government to vaccinate anyone aged 12 to 17. But President Andrés Manuel López Obrador dismissed the ruling as “not definitive” and said that “legally this is going to be respected, but at the same time, we are going to go to the relevant authority to clarify” the court’s decision (NYT). The government has said that it is concentrating on vaccinating the millions of adults who have not yet gotten their shots and downplayed the risks of Covid-19 for children. Some critics say that the hesitancy on the part of the government is more a reflection of the lack of vaccines and poor planning rather than a real concern about the use of vaccines in children. About 41% of Mexico’s adult population has been fully vaccinated.
Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria See Record Daily Deaths
On Tuesday the daily number of Covid-19 deaths in Russia hit another high with 1,106 deaths reported in the 24-hour period, the most since the start of the pandemic. Ukraine and Bulgaria also reported record daily death tolls on Tuesday (AP). Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a nonworking period between Oct. 30 and Nov. 7 to try to lower the spread of the virus and has been urging Russians to get vaccinated. Vaccination rates in Russia continue to be low even as access to museums, theaters, concert halls, and other venues will be limited to those who can prove they have been vaccinated or recently recovered from Covid-19. Only about 49 million people, about a third of the population, are fully vaccinated.
Brazilian Congressional Panel Votes in Favor of Criminal Charges for Bolsonaro
A congressional panel in Brazil voted on Tuesday evening to recommend nine criminal charges against President Jair Bolsonaro, including “crimes against humanity” (NYT). The panel is accusing Bolsonaro of intentionally allowing the coronavirus to spread throughout the country to reach herd immunity. The Senate also recommended charges against 77 other people, including government officials, private citizens, and three of Bolsonaro’s sons in response to their actions around the pandemic response. The recommendations are a result of a six-month investigation that found that Bolsonaro and other officials discouraged mask wearing and other common-sense measures, ignored offers of vaccines, and promoted unproven and sometimes dangerous drugs.
Australia Facing Skills Shortage as Country Reopens
Following two years of lockdown measures, Australia is finally opening venues from restaurants to sports stadiums, but employers are finding it difficult to staff their businesses after a huge exodus of holiday workers and foreign students. Strict border closures are still in place and as a result, there is a huge hole in the market for casual workers. Some hospitality and service industry companies are being forced to turn down work because they don’t have enough staff. "Prior to lockdown, you could place an advertisement and have hundreds of applicants," said Rhondda Everingham, hiring manager at the hospitality labour hire company. "Now you're lucky if you get five and you might have three that are suitable, and by the time you get a hold of them, they've got another job." According to government statistics, the number of non-resident workers in the country was down by two-thirds in June 2021 compared to the start of 2020 (Reuters).
Bonus Read: “Covid-19 Sets Back China’s Plans to Rebalance Its Economy,” (WSJ).
U.S. Government & Politics
Birx: Trump “Distracted” from Covid Response by Election; 130,000 Lives Could Have Been Saved
Deborah Birx, former White House coronavirus coordinator, told the House select subcommittee on the pandemic that Trump was “distracted” from pandemic response by the election, according to notes from interviews she gave to and then released by the subcommittee (WaPo). According to the excerpts, Birx stated, “I felt like the White House had gotten somewhat complacent through the campaign season.” The interviews occurred on October 12 and 13. Birx also said that 130,000 lives could have been saved by a better response, telling the subcommittee, “I believe if we had fully implemented the mask mandates, the reduction in indoor dining, the getting friends and family to understand the risk of gathering in private homes, and we had increased testing, that we probably could have decreased fatalities into the 30-percent-less to 40-percent-less range.”
Birx also placed blame on then-White House adviser Scott Atlas for politicizing the response (Politico). She told investigators, “I made it clear that I would not attend meetings where he would be present kind of to create a line in the sand” and “I just felt that it gave people in the White House an alternative position and data source that would allow them to say, again, here’s Debbie Birx, a federal employee for 40 years, here’s Scott Atlas, an academic, a physician, a thinker versus a technocrat; and I just felt like that was going to make it even more difficult to get across how severe I felt the fall and winter was going to be. And it was my concern over the fall and winter that I didn’t want a 180 degree voice present at critical decision-making meetings.”
Internal Immigration Arrests at Lowest Level in a Decade
On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported that according to data from ICE obtained by the Post, the number of immigration arrests inside the U.S. are at their lowest level in more than a decade (WaPo). The Post writes, “Officers working for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) made about 72,000 administrative arrests during the fiscal year that ended in September, down from 104,000 during the 2020 fiscal year and an average of 148,000 annually from 2017 through 2019. ERO administrative arrest data is considered one of the best gauges of ICE activity because interior enforcement is entirely under the agency’s control, unlike deportations and other metrics that rise and fall with migration trends at the Mexico border.” Arrests plummeted after Biden took office, in part due to a 100-day pause in enforcement he ordered. However, the Post notes, “while ICE’s arrests have increased in recent months, enforcement levels under Biden’s new priority system remain lower than in previous years.” The Post notes that at least one factor may be related to the pandemic, writing, “ICE curbed some enforcement activity in 2020 to avoid the spread of the coronavirus inside immigration jails. In the months that followed, the detainee population dropped to the lowest levels in more than a decade.”
U.S. Economy
Consumer Confidence Rises
Consumer confidence rose in October, after a three month downward trend, in part due to signs that the wave of the pandemic fueled by the Delta variant may be waning (WSJ). The Wall Street Journal writes, “The consumer confidence index increased to 113.8 in October from a revised 109.8 in September, according to data from the Conference Board released Tuesday. The indicator came in above the 108.0 estimate from economists polled by The Wall Street Journal. The rise in confidence can be attributed to Americans’ easing concerns over Covid-19, said Lynn Franco, senior director of economic indicators at the Conference Board.”
Bonus Read: “3-D Printed Houses Are Sprouting Near Austin as Demand for Homes Grows,” (WSJ).
U.S. Society
Bonus Read: “DIY Halloween: Haunted by Shortages, Fans Conjure Up Their Own Costumes,” (WSJ).
Study: Financial Incentives to Get Vaccinated Don’t Work
According to a study conducted by professors at the University of Southern California and University of California Los Angeles along with doctors from Contra Costa Health Services, financial incentives have not worked in promoting vaccination (WSJ). The study states, “While messages increased vaccination intentions, none of the treatments increased overall vaccination rates.” The Wall Street Journal notes, “The study looked at surveys and data gathered from California’s Contra Costa County (population about 1.1 million in 2020) that focused on health messaging as well as cash incentives. It looked at gender, race and ethnicity, age, and whether the person supported former President Trump or President Biden during the 2020 presidential election. In certain subgroups, the study found that financial incentives and negative messages decreased vaccination rates, particularly among those over 40 and those who said they backed Mr. Trump.” Another research letter published in the Journal of the American Medical Association came to a similar conclusion when it examined the use by states of large lotteries to incentivize vaccination. The letter stated, “No statistically significant association was detected between a cash-drawing announcement and the number of vaccinations before or after the announcement date.” That conclusion received criticism from Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine, whose press secretary stated, “When you look at when the date of shots administered were relative to the announcement, we saw in the first week a significant increase.”
Analysis & Arguments
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