Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine may neutralize Brazil variant, lab study finds, as experts warn of rapid spread

Patient advocacy groups are praising two proposals by state and federal lawmakers aimed at improving infection-control protocols and financial transparency in America’s nursing homes, struck by a crushing stretch of deaths since the start of the pandemic.

The Covid-19 Nursing Home Protection Act, introduced by five U.S. senators late last month, would provide $750 million to states to fund local strike teams of health and emergency workers who would fill staffing shortages during coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes. The bill would also deliver $210 million to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help shore up practices meant to prevent or contain the spread of communicable diseases.

Under new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccinated people can safely hold small indoor gatherings with other vaccinated people, without masks or distancing. They may also reasonably visit with low-risk unvaccinated individuals, such as children, without masks.

Travel, however, still is deemed inadvisable because of the potential for vaccinated people to carry and transmit coronavirus to others who are not vaccinated.

Yet officials in the health and travel industries disagree as to whether such caution is warranted at this point in the pandemic, as vaccinations in many countries ramp up but coronavirus variants continue to stir global concern.

The White House said Tuesday that President Biden’s name would not appear on the $1,400 stimulus payments set to be sent out to millions of American families as part of the administration’s relief package, a reversal from the precedent set under President Trump.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Tuesday that the payments approved under Biden would instead by signed by a career official at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, an office within the Department of Treasury. The House is expected to vote on the $1.9 trillion stimulus plan as soon as Wednesday, putting it on course to be signed into law by Biden next week.

For months and months, President Donald Trump and his allies in conservative media — chief among them the prime-time hosts on Fox News — found it politically useful to disparage government entities combating the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump needed someone to blame for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who had died, a total that by the time he left office was nearly twice the upper limit he had predicted last March. He needed to encourage economic activity to return to normal levels as his reelection loomed, so he disparaged experts’ calls for containment measures. All the while, the pandemic raged, with total cases and deaths in the United States worse as a function of population than nearly anywhere else in the world.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Tuesday said he will lift capacity limits on indoor and outdoor dining, retail businesses, fitness centers and religious establishments — the most dramatic steps taken toward reopening in the region since the winter surge in coronavirus cases.

The executive order from Hogan (R), to take effect at 5 p.m. Friday, also allows large venues such as concert halls and theaters to return to 50 percent capacity and for adult day-care centers to reopen. Quarantine requirements for out-of-state travel are also being lifted.

As President Biden ramps up a messaging campaign advocating for his $1.9 trillion economic rescue package, he may have an easier time of it than President Barack Obama had 12 years ago in justifying his $787 billion stimulus.

With passage of the plan this week all but assured, Biden plans to escalate his administration’s outreach to Americans over the coming weeks to defend the measure and lay out other priorities. It starts with his first prime-time address.

Biden’s remarks on Thursday aren’t the starting gun for a new communications campaign — for weeks, aides have done scores of interviews with national, local, and specialized media in an effort to muscle the legislation to the Resolute Desk.

In Toni Lane’s drawing, red and blue coronavirus particles tumble from the mouth of a patient whose face is half green and half blue. A doctor in white frowns as he washes his hands. A wary nurse in blue scrubs stands by.

It’s early in the pandemic. In hospitals, nobody is sure what’s going on. Outside, fear and isolation are everywhere. “The whole thing scared me,” Lane recalled. “I had to express how I felt.”

Lane’s surreal drawing is part of the trove of physical and digital artifacts being gathered at places like the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution to capture for posterity what the great coronavirus pandemic was like.

“Dylann Roof murdered nine people. He’s on federal death row. He’ll be getting a $1,400 stimulus check as part of the Democrats’ ‘COVID relief’ bill.”

— Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), in a tweet, March 6

“With this bill, they’re going to people in prison, they’re going to people who are illegal immigrants.”

— Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” March 7

Every Senate bill that proceeds on a fast-track process known as reconciliation features a strange ritual called “vote-a-rama,” as lawmakers race through a number of votes on amendments. If you are in the minority, as Republicans are now, it’s a moment when you can offer finely tuned amendments that are destined to fail but will serve up red meat for voters in later elections.