Yeah, But The Silo

Jennifer Rubin writes a good bit of what I've been thinking.

And (for me) at or near the top of the list of shit that's been going really wrong is the very strong probability that there's something wrong with the polling.

The questions on most polls are such that when I think about it, I can't give Biden a really high grade - even though I think he's doing pretty well in general - because (eg) AG Garland isn't stomping the fuck out of Steve Bannon and I'm kinda pissed about that. 

Even if the questions aren't so fucking stupid that they automatically allow for a much lower score on any given candidate or issue, the political marketing guys have sliced and diced the demographics to the point where smaller and smaller chunks of the electorate are so well-insulated and isolated from each other that they're likely never to see or hear anything but what they're being fed according to the algorithms.

As usual, "civilization" is finding it hard to keep up with its technology.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Opinion: Imagine if the Virginia governor’s election had been held a week later

President Biden and the Democratic Party had a much-needed great news day on Friday, upsetting the favored political media narrative. Definitive predictions of doom went up in smoke, reminding us how the pack mentality that drives coverage often leads to a cringeworthy disconnect between headlines and reality.

Pundits on the right and left had spent a week insisting that the Democratic Party was in a death spiral, and that the popular Biden agenda was the source of the party’s woes. Then the ground shifted.

First, the October jobs numbers released on Friday put to rest the notion that Biden has not been addressing issues most important to voters. With a boost of 531,000 jobs and an upward revision of 235,000 jobs for August and September, Biden could claim his aggressive agenda was working.

“This did not happen by accident or just because,” Biden said. “We laid the foundation for this recovery with my American Rescue Plan that Congress passed at the beginning of my term. It put money in working families’ pockets.” He also pointed out:

We got more than 220 million shots in arms in my first 100 days. And we didn’t stop there.

In recent months, we’ve started implementing vaccination requirements, which have helped bring the number of unvaccinated adults down in this country from around 100 million several months ago to 60 million now.

You know, that’s good for our health, but it’s also good for our economy.

Now vaccine — vaccinated workers are going back to work. Vaccinated shoppers are going back to stores.

And with the launch of the vaccine for kids ages 5 through 11 this week, we can make sure more vaccinated children can stay in school.

The constant refrain from Republicans and much of the political media that Biden has been focused on the wrong things simply does not hold up to scrutiny. One can question whether presidents get too much credit for economic numbers, but if you’re going to hold Biden responsible for the outcome, he has every reason to boast about the 5.6 million jobs created since the start of his term, an unemployment rate down to 4.6 percent, an average gain of 600,000 jobs per month and a rise in hourly wages of nearly 5 percent this year.

Moreover, in the agonizing struggle to pass two giant pieces of legislation, Biden could finally declare victory. The House on Friday voted to adopt the $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan. The final Build Back Better vote will take place by the week of Nov. 15.

Consider the narrative incessantly pushed by virtually every media outlet until Friday: Biden has not delivered on the economy. His agenda is too far left, threatening to expand the debt and fuel inflation. He has lost the confidence of the public on covid. Biden cannot corral the left (and/or the centrists).

None of that was borne out by subsequent events (or polling on his agenda). By week’s end, the economy looked on much firmer footing — and, unlike his predecessor, the president had achieved a historic infrastructure investment.

Inflation and deficit fears also subsided. The Joint Committee on Taxation declared the Build Back Better agenda would raise about $1.47 trillion over 10 years and in all likelihood would not add to the deficit. A pack of Nobel Prize-winning economists confirmed that the agenda would reduce long-term inflationary pressure. As one told The Post, “This is sound and uncontroversial economics — increasing supply and capacity reduces the bottlenecks that fuel inflationary surges.” Separately, Moody’s Analytics reported that Biden’s legislation “will strengthen long-term economic growth, the benefits of which would mostly accrue to lower- and middle-income Americans,” and it dismissed inflation concerns as “overdone.”

If the Virginia governor’s race had taken place after Friday, the good news might or might not have made a difference in the outcome. But the jobs numbers and legislative wins surely would have provided Democrats with a sense of momentum and blunted the gloomy coverage that no doubt depressed Democratic voter turnout.

One can argue that Democrats should have passed their bills weeks ago, allowing Virginia Democrats to bask in the glow of legislative success. However, one might also take away a different lesson, namely that the hyperbolic media coverage does a disservice to the public, increasing anxiety, playing down real progress and exaggerating the degree of political peril the administration faces. The media’s consistently premature declarations of failure (as with the Afghanistan airlift) never seem to prompt self-examination.

Greatly improved jobs figures and declining coronavirus numbers coupled with passage of the American Rescue Plan, historic infrastructure legislation and Build Back Better should soon allow Biden to claim one of the most successful first years of any modern president.

The “Biden failure” narrative, in retrospect, appears alarmist and downright wrong. If only the political media would exercise a modicum of self-restraint and allow events to play out, it might not continually wind up defending foolish predictions. Then again, measured headlines and restrained cable TV analysis do not necessarily draw big audiences.

Today's Reddit

Steve McQueen March 24, 1930 - November 7, 1980

COVID-19 Update

It is indeed all about your personal choices, so here's the thing, Skeezix: You don't have to get vaccinated, and you don't have to work here.

Your choice is your choice, but you stand behind your decisions and you own up to them.

• You don't come in here naked
• You don't shit on the floor in the lobby
• You don't take a 40 minute coffee break every hour
• You don't conduct personal business on company time
• You don't short-cut workplace safety rules
• You don't beat up your co-workers
• You don't smoke inside
• You don't come to work drunk or high
• Ya do
• Ya don't
• Ya do
• Ya don't

You don't have to follow any of the rules - unless you wanna keep your fuckin' job.

Seems pretty simple and straightforward. Which part is confusing for you?

AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is pushing forward with a massive plan to require millions of private sector employees to get vaccinated by early next year. But first, he has to make sure workers in his own federal government get the shot.

About 4 million federal workers are to be vaccinated by Nov. 22 under the president’s executive order. Some employees, like those at the White House, are nearly all vaccinated. But the rates are lower at other federal agencies, particularly those related to law enforcement and intelligence, according to the agencies and union leaders. And some resistant workers are digging in, filing lawsuits and protesting what they say is unfair overreach by the White House.

The upcoming deadline is the first test of Biden’s push to compel people to get vaccinated. Beyond the federal worker rule, another mandate will take effect in January aimed at around 84 million private sector workers, according to guidelines put out this past week.

On Saturday, a federal appeals court in Louisiana temporarily halted the vaccine requirement for businesses with 100 or more workers. The administration says it is confident that the requirement will withstand legal challenges in part because its safety rules preempt state laws.

If the mandates are a success, they could make the most serious dent in new coronavirus cases since the vaccine first became available, especially with the news this past week that children ages 5-11 can get the shot making an additional 64 million people eligible. But with two weeks remaining until the federal worker deadline, some leaders of unions representing the employees say that convincing the unvaccinated to change their mind is increasingly challenging.

“I got the vaccine in February, it was my own choice and I thought it would stop the virus,” said Corey Trammel, a Bureau of Prisons correctional officer and local union president in Louisiana. “But it hasn’t. And now I have people resigning because they are tired of the government overreach on this, they do not want to get the shot. People just don’t trust the government, and they just don’t trust this vaccine.”

Vaccines have a proven track record of safety, backed by clinical trials and independent reviews showing them overwhelmingly effective at preventing serious illness and death from COVID-19. More than 222 million Americans have received at least one vaccine dose and more than 193 million are fully vaccinated. More than half of the world population has also received a shot.

Scientists have been battling anxiety over the vaccine since it was first authorized; an AP-NORC poll earlier this year found one-third of adults in the U.S. were skeptical, despite assurances the vaccine was safe and effective and few instances of serious side effects. About 70% of American adults are fully vaccinated and 80% have received at least one dose of a vaccine.

Vaccinations have unfolded at uneven rates across the federal government.

Officials at Health and Human Services, U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Housing and Urban Development said they were working on getting their employees vaccinated but had no figures yet.

Several intelligence agencies had at least 20% of their workforce unvaccinated as of late October, said U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart, a Utah Republican who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association President Larry Cosme said there are about 31,000 members from 65 federal law enforcement agencies in the association and he estimated 60% of them have been vaccinated.

Homeland Security, a giant government department with more than 240,000 employees, was about 64% fully vaccinated by the end of last month. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has received at least 6,000 requests for medical or religious exemptions, according to the union that represents Border Patrol agents.

Federal agencies are warning employees about the upcoming mandate, offering time off to get the vaccine and encouraging workers to comply. But they won’t be fired if they don’t make the Nov. 22 deadline. They would receive “counseling” and be given five days to start the vaccination process. They could then be suspended for 14 days and eventually could be terminated, but that process would take months.

Republicans have argued the mandate goes too far. House Oversight Committee Republicans sent a letter in late October suggesting the president’s “authoritarian and extreme mandates infringe upon American freedoms, are unprecedented, and may ultimately be deemed unlawful.”

In their letter, Reps. James Comer of Kentucky and Jody Hice of Georgia said they worried about a large number of government vacancies should thousands of workers refuse and get fired. That concern was also felt by those in the already-understaffed Bureau of Prisons.

A federal corrections officers union in Florida filed a lawsuit this past week over the mandate, saying it was a violation of civil rights. Some prison workers say they’re torn about the vaccine, not wanting to lose their livelihoods but also unwilling to sacrifice their personal beliefs. Officers near retirement age are contemplating leaving rather than go through with the vaccine.

One prison worker in West Virginia texted a colleague that the worker wasn’t willing to be a guinea pig, writing: “It would be different if it wasn’t new. But it is. And I don’t wanna be your experiment.”

The worker, describing how agonizing the decision had been, said: “I’ve cried and puked so much my eyes and stomach hurts.” The worker wondered if it was wrong to stand firm against the vaccine.

Border Patrol employees have been directed to confirm their vaccination status by Tuesday, according to union President Brandon Judd. As of Thursday, 49% of Border Patrol agents responded to say they are fully vaccinated and about 7% reported not being vaccinated, Judd said.

It’s unclear at this point how many will continue to refuse if they aren’t granted an exemption and face losing their job as a result.

“When it comes down to losing your livelihood or getting vaccinated, I think the vast majority are going to ultimately get vaccinated,” Judd said. “We are going to lose people. How many? I really couldn’t predict that.”

Today's Tweet

"Yam Tits" is my new favorite thing in the whole wide world.

Brandon is out here getting all the stuff done that Yam Tits couldn’t! #ThankYouBrandon

— Irishrygirl (@irishrygirl) November 6, 2021

Build Back Better

Four years of Qult45 crowing about Infrastructure and we got bupkis. Less than 10 months in, and Biden brings it home, dragging a few unbelievably whiny dog-ass "conservatives" across the yard and up onto the porch. 

2,700 pages of Infrastructure Investments.

Half a dozen Democrats (The Squad) voted against it, along with all but maybe a dozen Republicans, so we get to call it "bi-partisan".

It'll be important to watch who shows up in the photo ops as projects start to roll out, but of course, we probably can't count on the Press Poodles to keep us up to date on much of that.

WaPo:

What’s in the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package

The bipartisan bill includes $550 billion in new investments in roads, bridges, broadband and more. It is widely expected to create a lot of jobs.

The bipartisan infrastructure bill is finally on its way to President Biden’s desk.

After months of intense debate between Democrats’ warring factions, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday secured passage of an approximately $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill to upgrade the nation’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports, broadband and other public works.

The Senate approved the measure on a bipartisan basis in early August, but the legislation then languished in the House as liberal lawmakers refused to back the measure without assurances that Biden’s broader social spending package would be approved.

The infrastructure package contains $550 billion in entirely new investments, including money for electric-car charging stations and zero-emission school buses. The spending is mostly paid for — without raising taxes. The bulk of the funding comes from repurposing unspent coronavirus relief money and tightening enforcement on reporting gains from cryptocurrency investments. The bill would add about $256 billion to the deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The plan garnered significant support from Democrats and Republicans.

Total new spending: $550 billion

The bipartisan bill is a lot less than the $2.3 trillion Biden initially asked for in the spring, but it is still a significant amount of funding for the next five years. The senators often like to refer to the bill as a $1.2 trillion package because they are also counting funding that is normally allotted each year for highways and other projects.

The spending is partially paid for with unused coronavirus relief dollars, unused federal unemployment aid, sales of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, increased fees for some Superfund sites and customs, and delaying a Medicare expense for a year. Some money would also come from tighter enforcement to ensure cryptocurrency investors pay taxes once they sell and realize their gains. Budget experts say the bill is likely to add about $350 billion to the deficit over the next decade. On top of the CBO forecast, they say an additional $90 billion must be included since the bill “authorizes” that spending even though it is not technically counted as spent.

How many jobs would it create?

Lawmakers and the White House are touting the huge number of jobs this bill would help generate. Many construction jobs do not require college degrees, though they do require some special skills. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, estimates growth of about 660,000 jobs could result by 2025. Interestingly, construction has been one of the few industries with slow job growth in recent months. The bill includes funding and provisions to get more job training programs going and to get more women into the construction and trucking industries.

What happened with crypto?

The bill was held up for several days over a debate about a provision that would require more-stringent reporting of cryptocurrency gains and losses to the IRS. The goal is to ensure crypto investors are paying taxes properly, but there was concern that the language was so broad that developers who worked on crypto would also face taxation. In the end, the Senate did not change the language in this bill, but the Treasury Department has vowed it will not go after the developers.

What are the other top-line numbers?

Roads and bridges: $110 billion. The biggest-ticket item in the bill is money for building and repairing roads and bridges across the country. Many senators are already touting projects in their home states that will benefit from the funding. Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) were both instrumental in crafting the bipartisan plan, and it is notable that the bill includes specific funding earmarked for Appalachian and Alaskan highways. There is also funding for transportation research at universities, funding for Puerto Rico’s highways and money for “congestion relief” efforts in cities.

Railroads: $66 billion. The U.S. passenger rail system, a favorite of Biden’s, receives a large chunk of funding for upgrades and maintenance. There is substantial funding earmarked for the Northeast Corridor, the heavily traveled route from Boston to D.C. The bill also has money for freight rail safety and calls for stations that average 40 passengers a day to have a station agent on duty. Some were disappointed that the bill does not specifically call for investment in the kind of high-speed-rail seen in other countries.

Democrats release $3.5 trillion budget blueprint

Power grid: $65 billion. The plan has substantial funding for “grid reliability and resiliency,” a fancy way of saying updates to older power lines and cables, and investments in ways to ensure the power grid is not hacked. As part of the bill’s efforts to address climate change, the power grid section also has funding to support the development and adaptation of clean-energy technology.

Broadband: $65 billion. There is a major focus in the bill on expanding broadband in rural areas and low-income communities. This has been a bipartisan priority for years, but the White House estimates that about 30 million Americans still do not have reliable Internet access, which became a major issue for schooling and work during the pandemic. About $14 billion of the funding would go toward making monthly Internet bills more affordable for low-income Americans.

Senate infrastructure bill sets stage for massive effort to make broadband more available and affordable

Water (especially pipes):

$55 billion. After the Flint, Mich., lead contamination crisis, there is a renewed focus on ensuring U.S. water infrastructure gets upgraded. The bill includes $15 billion specifically for lead-pipe replacement. There is also $10 billion to clean up man-made chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. The bill also sets aside money for clean drinking water for tribal communities.

‘Resilience’:

$47 billion. The resiliency funding falls mainly into two categories: cybersecurity and climate change mitigation. There is funding to help protect infrastructure from attacks, along with funding to address droughts, flooding, wildfire mitigation, coastal erosion and other big issues affecting many parts of the nation as weather patterns become more extreme.

Public transit:

$39 billion. Senators and the White House have been citing a Transportation Department estimate that 40 percent of buses and 23 percent of subway and rail cars are in poor shape. The funding would go a long way toward upgrades. There is also money for new bus routes and making public transit more accessible to seniors and Americans with disabilities.

Airports:

$25 billion. Biden famously described New York City’s LaGuardia in 2014 as a “Third World country” airport. The bill contains funding for major upgrades and expansions at U.S. airports. About $5 billion would go specifically toward upgrading air traffic control towers and systems.

For first time, average pay for supermarket and restaurant workers tops $15 an hour

Remediation:

$21 billion. This part of the bill includes funds to clean up brownfield and Superfund sites, abandoned mines, and old oil and gas wells that need to be plugged.

Ports:

$17 billion. There is a significant investment in various port infrastructure. About half the money goes to the Army Corps of Engineers. There is also money for the Coast Guard and for ferry terminals and efforts to reduce truck emissions at ports.

Safety:

$11 billion. The bulk of the funding in this section is for highway safety, but there is also funding for pedestrian safety, pipeline safety and even ways to prevent vehicle incidents involving animals.

Western water infrastructure:

$8 billion. As parts of the West continue to suffer droughts, the bill designates several billions to invest in water treatment, storage and reuse facilities to help mitigate these issues. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) was one of the major negotiators of the package, and her state is one of many in the West that has had drought issues in recent years.

Electric-vehicle charging stations:

$7.5 billion. The United States has about 43,000 charging stations. Biden has set a goal of having half of new cars electric by 2030, which will require significantly more charging stations across the nation.

Electric school buses:

$7.5 billion. The bill makes a major push to replace existing school buses with zero-emissions buses. Specific funding is set aside to help lower-income, rural and tribal communities replace their bus fleets.

What else is in the bill?

There was a major lobbying frenzy for this package, and the result is many small provisions tucked in the bill to aid different groups. For example, there is funding for salmon recovery; requirements that states enforce laws that ban open alcoholic beverages in cars; and a provision allowing states to use some of their funding for recreational trails. There is also money for research on “wildlife crossing safety” and money for a “healthy streets” program to expand tree cover to mitigate urban heat. And, perhaps a favorite of avid train riders such as Biden, there is a line in the bill encouraging more food and beverage services on Amtrak routes, even if revenue does not break even.

The bill also attempts to fast-track permitting for infrastructure projects, an issue the Trump administration attempted to address as well.

COVID-19 Update

Not-so-random thought: Republicans make a lot of noise about being "the party of National Security", and then they go out of their way to miss the whole fuckin' point.

Their official stance on the COVID Vax seems to be nebulous at best, and they just can't figure out how to tweak it in the face of what's becoming overwhelming public sentiment that we really really really need a stronger effort to get us up to that magic 75-90% vaccination level, and that a national mandate is just something we need to insist on.

So lemme just say that the key to National Security - like the key to everything else - is a big bunch of healthy people.

And what makes for big bunches of healthy people?

• Vaccinations (it's the healthcare, stoopid)
• Clean Air
• Clean Water
• Clean Soil - so we're not growing poisoned food
• Honest and Thorough Education
• Daycare
• Pre-K
• Afterschool
• Family & Medical Leave
• Tax & Wage Fairness
• Voting rights
• Labor rights
• Public Safety ie: Quality Community-Based Policing
• Equal Justice
• Equal Rights
• Good ol' American diversity
• and and and

These things are National Security issues,

because everything is a National Security issue.

WaPo:

Biden touts antiviral pill as more than a dozen Republican AGs file suit against vaccine mandate

In what could be another turning point in the grueling fight against a virus that has upended lives and killed more than 749,000 people in the country, President Biden said Friday that the United States has already secured millions of doses of Pfizer’s antiviral pill, which the drugmaker says is extremely effective in treating covid-19 for at-risk people.

“If authorized by the FDA, we may soon have pills that may treat the virus of those who become infected,” Biden said at a news conference. “The therapy would be another tool in our toolbox to protect people from the worst outcomes of covid.”

The news came as sixteen state attorneys general filed lawsuits against the Biden administration for imposing a vaccine mandate on businesses that employ 100 or more workers — a move that underscores the broader opposition by Republican-led states to requirements for immunizations aimed at curbing the pandemic.
As pandemic pounds Ukraine, desperate officials try to scare people into getting the jab

- and -

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s pandemic figures are scary: skyrocketing infections, record deaths and among the lowest vaccination rates in Europe.

So officials decided to become scary themselves with an advertising campaign aimed at young people: If you’re unvaccinated, you may die.

“Every day, there’s a new record in deaths,” a voice-over intones in one advertising spot being shown on nearly 30 local television channels. Over images of young people partying, working out and engaging in other everyday activities, different voices echo ideas among young people about their invincibility. “Everything’s fine with my immune system.” “I’m still too young.” “It’ll pass over me.”

But those shots are spliced together with images of young people being put on oxygen and rushed into intensive care. A final shot shows a coffin being lifted.

- more -

Today's Cheap Shots

I check in with Bill Maher every once in a while - and pretty much every time, I'm reminded why it was a good decision to drop cable.

• This was the first time a Dem got re-elected NJ Gov in 45 years
• This was the first time since Reagan that the party in the White House didn't lose both VA & NJ in their 1st term
• Democrats picked up a seat in Ohio
• Democrats won pretty big in Georgia - again
• Democrats won at the county level in a lot of places, including Virginia
• A Democrat won NYC Mayor
• and and and

Politics is a brick fight, dressed up and pretending to be a covered dish supper at church.

And there's no doubt the Dems got their nose bloodied, but this knee-jerk doom-n-gloom is the standard formulaic junk that the Press Poodles barf up on a regular basis. It's disingenuous and intellectually lazy. But it sells lotsa dick pills and tactical flashlights, so hey - it's all about the eyeballs, right?

The bean-counters are driving this bus, and they don't care if it's true or not - they're busy worrying about the analytics.

Today's Tweet (Tik Tok)

Sea legs

*Get on the boat*, they said. pic.twitter.com/45fdzzvSKd

— J- 🌎✨ (@MajorFactor2) November 5, 2021

COVID-19 Update

Most of us can eventually acknowledge the evolutionary imperative of caring for others.

When you have kids, you really start learning how to worry about shit. And that goes on forever.

You never stop worrying about them - about the decisions you've made - about the times you know you fucked up - about the times you fucked up without knowing it - how you fucked up by saying or doing something you shouldn't have said or done - or by not doing or saying something you should have done or said - or whatever combination eats at you, making you wish for a do-over.

That special angst is always there, and you're just going to have to get used to never sleeping quite the same ever again.

But becoming a parent also requires learning where to turn for advice and good counsel.

If I had the talent and the brains and the time and the money, I could hit the books and learn things like biology, and early childhood development, and nutrition, and immunology for myself, and one of the important things I'd learn is that I need to pay attention to the people who've done the work before I got here, and not to some yahoo suckin' around for clicks on YouTube or TikTok.

Be skeptical. Be wary. Go against the grain. Ask questions. Just don't get fuckin' stoopid about it.

WaPo - Leana Wen, MD:

Opinion: Three ways to overcome vaccine hesitancy in parents

Now that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended the coronavirus vaccine for 5-to-11-year-olds, public health officials will soon face the challenge of overcoming vaccine hesitancy in parents.

First, celebrate the early adopters and amplify their stories.

A recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey reports that 27 percent of parents said they will vaccinate their younger children as soon as the shot is authorized. Thirty percent responded that they will definitely not vaccinate their kids, while 33 percent fell into the “wait and see” category. (The remaining 5 percent said they will do so only if required.)

I believe the initial effort should focus on getting shots to the ready, willing and eager, and then enlisting them as ambassadors. These are families who have been desperate for shots. In advance of the CDC’s green light, Texas Children’s Hospital reported booking 120 appointments per minute starting last Friday. By Tuesday morning, more than 28,000 children were signed up.

Getting this initial group vaccinated will itself have a substantial effect: Twenty-seven percent of 28 million newly eligible children is nearly 8 million grade school students who will be protected in time for Christmas. These kids and their parents can help pediatricians, school officials and local health departments explain to others the benefits of vaccination.

Importantly, this effort should demonstrate what families are able to do once they are fully vaccinated. The media should help tell their stories: The child with autoimmune disease who had to be home-schooled and is now able to see his friends. The family that hasn’t been able to travel abroad to visit elderly grandparents but can now reunite. The kid who was pulled out of gymnastics and soccer who can now resume the extracurricular activities she loves.

When vaccines were first made available for adults, there was criticism that “vaccine selfies” highlighted unequal access. People were shamed for returning to pre-pandemic activities, when this was their main motivator for choosing vaccination.

This was a mistake. We need early adopters to proudly demonstrate that vaccines are safe, effective and key to returning to their lives. Normalizing vaccination and explaining what kids can now do once inoculated are essential to persuading the wait-and-see group to get off the fence.

Second, don’t blame hesitancy when access is the barrier.

For millions of adults who delayed vaccination, their reason wasn’t that they objected to the vaccine, but rather that they couldn’t take time off from work or lacked transportation or child care. We have seen that this group is amenable to vaccines if they’re brought to them, at their place of work or worship, for example.

The Biden administration and many localities are establishing plans for school-based vaccine clinics, mobile outreach and widespread distribution to pediatricians’ offices. These efforts will be essential to reach those who are willing so long as vaccination is the easy and convenient choice.

Third, boldly declare that vaccines will replace masking.

Vaccines are a highly effective layer of protection that can take the place of other mitigation measures. School officials should make clear that if an entire class is vaccinated, they no longer need to mask around one another. A sports team made up of fully vaccinated members should be able to practice and socialize without restrictions.

Such policies would add a much-needed incentive for vaccination, especially for those families who aren’t convinced by the data that covid-19 poses a major threat to children. Schools are under increasing pressure to implement an off-ramp for mask mandates. Now is the time to tie the end of masking to vaccination.

There will be some detractors who argue that the vaccine is not 100 percent protective, so is it really safe to do away with masks? Here is where we cannot, once again, let the perfect be the enemy of the good. From the beginning, the message should have been that vaccination is the ticket out of pandemic restrictions. Nearly every daily activity will still carry some risk, but that risk will be much lower because of the vaccine. We need to allow vaccinated people to choose their level of risk, which includes, in many settings, the ability to go without a mask.

In early March, I argued that we had a small window of opportunity to make the case for vaccinating adults by tying vaccination to reopening policy. This didn’t happen. Restrictions were lifted anyway; the messaging around vaccination became increasingly muddled; and vaccine uptake plummeted. Let’s not make the same mistake again. Americans should turn our collective attention to protecting our children as we inch, together, toward our new normal.

Today's Tweet

What I missed - and what the Press Poodles won't tell us.

Tuesday was a huge victory for Georgia Democrats, with candidates in our targeted races flipping 41 seats in 21 counties across Georgia.

Our momentum is only growing, and we're going to keep fighting in every race, up and down the ballot. #gapol https://t.co/xgUMuL2Cgo

— Georgia Democrats (@GeorgiaDemocrat) November 4, 2021