Coronavirus: The Hill and the Headlines, March 8 2021

In Washington:

• The Senate passed the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package in a 50-49 party-line vote. The Senate is sending an amended version of the American Recovery Plan back to the House with some changes.  The House is now expected to vote on the package on Wednesday. House Democrats had initially planned a Tuesday vote. Democratic aides said on Monday that the House is still awaiting required bill processing papers from the Senate before voting. President Biden vowed Monday to sign the relief bill "as soon as I can get it." Rep. Pete Aguilar (CA), vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus, said Monday a one-day delay would still enable the President’s signature before Sunday when unemployment benefits are set to expire.

• President Biden said in remarks on Saturday that Americans will begin to receive direct payments starting in March if the pending COVID-19 relief bill passes. “This plan will get checks out the door, starting this month, to the American people who so desperately need the help,” Biden said. According to the White House, over 85 percent of American households should get stimulus payments of up to $1,400 per person. After the last round of stimulus checks was approved in December, the government began sending payments within a few days.

• Today, Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky announced new guidelines for vaccinated Americans. Walensky said people who have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 can now spend time together in small groups indoors and unmasked.  Also, fully vaccinated people from a single household can visit small groups of unvaccinated people from a single household indoors, without a mask, and with no social distancing if the non-vaccinated members are low risk.  Those fully immunized also can refrain from quarantining and testing following a known exposure to COVID-19 if asymptomatic.  To be "fully vaccinated," the CDC requires two weeks to have passed since receiving the final dose of the vaccine regimen.

• President Biden will deliver a prime-time TV address on Thursday to mark the country’s anniversary locking down due to the pandemic. "He will discuss the many sacrifices the American people have made over the last year, and the grave loss communities and families across the country have suffered," as well as looking forward, press secretary Jen Psaki said at a briefing with reporters. The speech will be Biden's first prime-time address as president.

• With approximately 10 percent of Americans vaccinated and large quantities of shots now in supply, the Biden administration is now having to contend with how to achieve “herd immunity” when a portion of the U.S.’s population is hesitant to get the vaccine. Besides those refusing the vaccine due to fear or distrust, the most challenging will be convincing Americans who believe the vaccine and/ or virus is a hoax.  

• The White House says it is monitoring Russian efforts to spread disinformation about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. The State Department said that three publications run by Russian intelligence services have been identified as trying to undermine the vaccines.  

• The Department of Health and Human Services’ Inspectors General (IG) is investigating how the CDC can improve the accuracy of health data on COVID-19 and how the virus has affected race and ethnicity.  The review will allow a better understanding of the pandemic’s effect on Americans and how communities of color and economically disadvantaged suffered disproportionate death rates during the pandemic. 

In the News:

• A laboratory study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Monday shows that the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech was able to neutralize a new variant of the coronavirus spreading rapidly in Brazil.  About 78 percent of people who have been hospitalized, needed a ventilator, or died from COVID-19 have been overweight or obese, the CDC said in a new study Monday. Overweight is defined as having a body mass index of 25 or more, while obesity is 30 or more. Just over 42 percent of Americans were considered obese in 2018, according to the agency. Among the patients studied, 27.8 percent were overweight and 50.2 percent were obese. The study has limitations because it studied only adults who received care at a hospital. Therefore, these estimates might differ from the risk among all adults with coronavirus, the CDC said.

• The Dalai Lama on Saturday received his first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. It was the exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader’s first public appearance in over a year. The 85-year-old traveled to a clinic in his home-in-exile in Dharamsala, India. He received a vaccine known as Covishield, developed by the University of Oxford and the drug firm AstraZeneca. In a video message afterward, the Dalai Lama said, "I took [the vaccine] so I want to share [that] more people should have courage to take this injection."

• Movie theater ticket sales over the weekend hit an estimated $24 million, which would be the best showing of the pandemic if those numbers hold pending a final tally. Over the weekend, 45 percent of all North American theaters were open, according to data from Comscore. These rising numbers and a wider distribution of vaccines have led some studios to move up release dates for big movies. In January, Warner Bros. led the pack by moving “Godzilla v. Kong” to March 31 from a prior May release date.

Authored by Ivan Zapien