Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Subscribe here. August 3, 2021 Covid-19 Defenses Need a Boost "Breakthrough" Covid-19 infections among the vaccinated are changing the pandemic discussion, as concerns abound over the Delta variant and the specter of waning immunity. At Foreign Policy, Pulitzer-winning infectious-disease journalist Laurie Garrett writes that all signs indicate the fully vaccinated will need another round of doses, delivered as booster shots to improve resistance.
"In Atlanta, CDC scientists are scrambling to comprehend what havoc the variant strains are wreaking, how well the vaccines are working, and what forecast ought to end up on the president's desk," Garrett writes. "For several months, the CDC has refereed a sort of artificial intelligence conference of modelers and forecasters from all over the United States, mostly academics." Their estimates have varied, but "[t]he CDC grinds it all up to reach a sort of projection consensus. And so far, these forecasts have been scary correct. In its latest modeling mashup, the CDC forecast predicts that the new delta-driven surge won't peak until October, possibly not until Thanksgiving. By late August, at least 2,500 Americans will die, every week, bringing the nation's cumulative mortality to some 660,000."
To Garrett, that suggests "it's time for a Hail Mary move. And that would be the mass third-dose vaccination of every American over 60 years of age, coupled with a return to mask-wearing and social distancing and a massive escalation in genomic surveillance nationwide. Anything less means ceding the battlefield to the virus."
Still, with so much of the world unvaccinated, that could be controversial, as global vaccine-distribution efforts need a boost of their own. At Nature, Amy Maxmen writes that talk of issuing extra shots in rich countries is generating some resentment in places where citizens have yet to receive a first round of doses. Trump's Health Secretary Sounds the Alarm "And so the shadow war between Iran and Israel continues," The Economist writes after the US, UK, and Israel blamed Iran for a drone attack in the Arabian Sea on a tanker connected to Israel, for which Iran has denied responsibility.
"In recent years several of their vessels have been attacked, with each side blaming the other. Israel has also struck Iranian positions in Syria and is accused of attacking important facilities in Iran, sometimes with cyber-weapons," the magazine writes. Israel's army chief, in fact, appeared to hint at Israeli responsibility for a mysterious incident at an Iranian nuclear site in April.
This apparent tit-for-tat could affect nuclear diplomacy between Iran and world powers, the magazine writes. While the US and UK have responded to the tanker attack in relatively muted fashion, "Israel's leaders, never fans of the [nuclear deal]"—and thus possibly less concerned about disrupting talks over it—"may prefer a more forceful response. 'This time the price is going up,' says Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence." Germans must accept that they're not safe from violent weather abetted by climate change, Christiane Hoffmann wrote recently in an editorial for Der Spiegel, suggesting July's devastating floods "showed that it's not just a matter of stopping climate change in the next 10 to 20 years, but of starting now to adapt to the new extreme weather events."
In a later Der Spiegel essay, nine coauthors examined the politics of climate adaptation. "For many, the idea of adapting sounded more like surrender," they write, when compared to limiting emissions and stopping the climate from changing. It is now surrounded by a mix of realization and reluctance.
"Some municipalities record the locations where downpours can become dangerous," they write. "Slopes, ground conditions and developed areas are incorporated into rain hazard maps that are used for planning purposes. A 2019 study from the Federal Environment Agency, however, found that only seven of these maps were accessible online. Other municipalities, it said, had produced maps but had not placed them online 'for legal or other reasons.' … Some cities, like Berlin, have built enormous underground storage facilities in recent years to absorb the water from heavy rain. Hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of storage are to be built, with some spaces as large as cathedrals. This is coming at a cost of more than 150 million euros."
Like Hoffman, they acknowledged that weather can't really be tamed—and even expensive modifications like flood walls and basins may not save some areas from a 200-year flood, if it comes. Ukraine's Place in History—and in the World After Russian President Vladimir Putin published a lengthy, historical essay arguing Ukraine and Belarus belong in Russia's cultural and political orbit, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has published a rejoinder at Foreign Affairs, arguing Ukraine belongs in the West—and that NATO and the European Union should welcome it into their folds.
"This year marks the 30th anniversary of Ukraine's independence" from the former USSR, Kuleba writes. "Millions of young Ukrainians have not lived a single day in the Soviet Union, and many of them now have children of their own. The idea of a 'common Soviet past,' already fading among older generations, means little to them. These young people have lived through two revolutions—first the 2004 Orange Revolution and then the 2014 Revolution of Dignity—and an ongoing war with Russia. For them, Ukraine has never gained independence; it has always been independent." |
