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Worse Before It’s Better |
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© Getty Images Via The Hill’s Nathaniel Weixel, the Biden administration will lay out a plan today to begin offering booster shots for those who have received either the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines, eight months after they received their second shots, beginning on Sept. 20. Officials say they expect those who received Johnson & Johnson shots will need boosters of their own, but they’re still reading in on the data. Tl;dr: The move is already infuriating global public health officials, who are increasingly upset with the uneven rollout of COVID-19 vaccines. There are countries in Africa and the Caribbean that haven’t received a single dose of vaccine, and we’re on shot three? But the announcement confronts an uncomfortable fact: The summer surge fueled by the delta variant is rippling across the United States. States like Florida, Mississippi and Texas have been early epicenters, but it’s starting to spread, even to states that have kept case counts lower. A quick scan of today’s news: Oregon has set a new daily case count and hospitalization record. Montana ICU admissions are at their highest rate since December. Idaho hospitals are two weeks away from having to implement crisis care standards. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) has re-imposed a mask mandate. So has Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D). Kentucky’s positivity rate is at an all-time high. And Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has tested positive for COVID-19, though he’s fortunately not experiencing symptoms. Hot Vax Summer has turned into a hot mess. Tomorrow, we’ll talk to a top infectious disease expert to give you a hint of what comes next. |
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AT&T is making a $2 billion, 3-year commitment to help connect communities to their American Dream |
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Susana Chávez became valedictorian of International High School at Langley Park while juggling numerous jobs throughout school. But what kept her powering through it all was her American Dream. With the help of accessible and affordable broadband, she was able to focus on her studies, get assistance from teachers and stay in touch with her mother back home. And thanks to Access from AT&T, we can connect low-income households like Susana’s, and more communities in areas we serve with their American Dream. Find out how. |
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| It’s Wednesday. I’m Reid Wilson, filling in for Cate today with a quick recap of the morning and what’s coming up. Send comments, story ideas and events for our radar to rwilson@thehill.com — and follow along on Twitter @CateMartel and Facebook.
Did someone forward this to you? Want your own copy? Sign up here to receive The Hill's 12:30 Report in your inbox daily: http://bit.ly/2kjMNnn |
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Biden Hopes to Speed Asylum Claims |
| Via The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch, the Biden administration is proposing a new rule to streamline the asylum process to relieve a backlog that can leave applicants waiting for years on end. The joint DHS-DOJ proposal would allow Citizenship and Immigration Services officers to decide asylum claims, rather than routing those claims through immigration courts. |
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| SPEAKING OF ASYLUM… |
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The Hill’s Ellen Mitchell reports: Uganda, North Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo have agreed to take thousands of Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban. The U.S. military is planning to ramp up flights out of Kabul’s international airport to one an hour, a pace that would get 5,000 to 9,000 people out of the country every day.
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Biden Under 50 |
| President Biden’s approval rating has dropped below 50 percent in both the FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics moving averages. He’s still got a plurality behind him – his rating stands at 49.3 percent in the FiveThirtyEight average, and 44.1 percent disapprove. |
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Yes Virginia, Redistricting is Partisan |
| Via the Richmond Times-Dispatch: Virginia legislator created a citizen redistricting commission to take the politics out of the decennial remap process. But redistricting is inherently partisan, and now the 16-member body is riven by partisan strife. They can’t agree on an entity to help them create new maps, and they can’t even agree on subcommittees meant to reduce everyone’s workload. Not a great sign of things to come. 30,000 Feet: The same kind of acrimony is slowing redistricting panels in Michigan and New Jersey. Welcome to the world of redistricting, where nothing is simple. |
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Connecticut GOP Flips a Seat |
| Via The Hartford Courant: Republican Ryan Fazio has won a special election for a seat in the Connecticut state Senate, flipping a district that had been held by a Democratic incumbent. Some talking points for both sides here: Good news for Republicans is that Biden carried the Greenwich-based district by a wide margin. Marginally assuaging Democrats’ worst fears is that Republicans had held the seat since the 1930s, before it flipped in 2018. |
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| CUOMO GOTTA BE KIDDING ME |
| New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has filed papers claiming a lifetime $50,000 pension before he leaves office in the face of a sexual harassment scandal. The governor made millions off a COVID-19 book that published amid alleged efforts by his administration to hide COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes. |
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| LATEST WITH THE CORONAVIRUS | |
School’s In For … Now? |
| Via yours truly: School districts in red states are bucking governors who have tried to block the imposition of new mask mandates. School leaders in Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona are imposing the mandates anyway — one Texas district is trying to get around Gov. Abbott’s order by adding masks to their dress code — at the risk of funding cuts or legal jeopardy. There’s an implicit threat that’s going unspoken through much of the country: Some school districts have already been forced into virtual mode. In one Florida county, more than 5,000 students are in quarantine. Ban the masks now, some school board leaders say, and we could be looking at another seriously disrupted school year. |
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| CASE NUMBERS: |
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Coronavirus cases in the U.S.: 37,026,198, up 139,872 on an average day over the last week, 52 percent higher than two weeks ago.
U.S. death toll: 623,363, up another 696 souls.
Breakdown of the numbers: https://cnn.it/2UAgW3y
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| VACCINATION NUMBERS: |
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Total number of vaccinations administered in the U.S.: 358 million shots have been given.
Seven-day average of doses administered: An average of 766,902 doses a day. For context: The U.S. population is roughly 331 million. Breakdown of the numbers: https://bloom.bg/3iVTPLH |
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Has to Be TNG |
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© Twitter |
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Ashley Feels Our Pain... |
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© Twitter |
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Grab your White Claws and High Noons! Hard Seltzer is Here to Stay. |
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© Twitter |
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| The House and Senate are out. President Biden and Vice President Harris are at the White House. 2:15 p.m. EDT: Biden and Harris receive an update from the White House COVID-19 response team. 4:30 p.m. EDT: Biden delivers remarks on the COVID-19 response and vaccination progress from the East Room. |
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| 3 p.m. EDT: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley brief reporters on the latest from Afghanistan. Livestream: https://www.c-span.org/video/?514150-1/defense-secretary-joint-chiefs-chair-hold-briefing-afghanistan 4 p.m. EDT: House Transportation Committee chair Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) talks infrastructure. Livestream: https://www.c-span.org/video/?514141-1/house-trans-cmte-chair-discusses-infrastructure-bill |
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| NOW FOR THE FUN STUFF...: | |
| Today is National Ice Cream Pie Day. |
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Suni Days Ahead |
| Olympic gold medal gymnast Suni Lee has started the next phase of her life as a freshman at Auburn. Think she’ll get a spot on the gymnastics team? |
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| And to get you through your Wednesday afternoon, here’s a cat with a dark sense of humor: https://bit.ly/3AblvTU |
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