A vaccine “fiasco” may do lasting damage to the E.U.’s reputation. The bloc’s ability to act on other major issues, like climate change, may be weakened after its chaotic inoculation campaign. Across the U.S., a decline in testing may be masking the spread of the virus.
Here’s what you need to know:
Vaccinated Americans are free to travel but should still take precautions, the C.D.C. says.
A vaccine ‘fiasco’ damages Europe’s credibility.
The U.K. reports more blood-clotting cases in people who received the AstraZeneca shot.
The F.D.A. authorizes fuller vials from Moderna, a boost to vaccine stock.
Johnson & Johnson has begun testing its vaccine in adolescents.
For a pandemic-battered New York City, there are signs of revival.
After a music festival hoax, thousands flocked to a Brussels park, flouting rules.
Scientists say they still don’t know whether vaccinated people can spread the virus.
Travelers board a Jet Blue flight from Orlando to Washington last month.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times'
Americans who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 can travel “at low risk to themselves,” both within the United States and internationally, but they must continue to take precautions like wearing a mask in public, avoiding crowds, maintaining social distancing and washing hands frequently, federal health officials said on Friday.
Vaccinated Americans do not need to get a coronavirus test before arriving in another country, unless required to do so by authorities at the destination, and they do not need to quarantine after returning to the United States unless required to do so by local jurisdictions, according to new recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But vaccinated travelers should have a negative result from a coronavirus test before boarding a flight back to the United States, and they should get tested again three to five days after their return home. The recommendation is predicated on the idea that vaccinated people may still be infected with the virus.
People are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, or two weeks after receiving the second dose of the two-dose regimen from Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna.
The new advice adds to guidance issued in early March saying that fully vaccinated people may gather in small groups in private settings without masks or social distancing, and may visit with unvaccinated individuals from a single household as long as they are at low risk for developing severe disease if infected with the virus.
The recommendations issued Friday do not alter the C.D.C. travel guidelines for the unvaccinated. The agency continues to discourage non-essential domestic travel by those who are not fully immunized, saying that if they must travel, they should be tested for coronavirus infection one to three days before their trip and again three to five days after concluding their trip. Unvaccinated travelers should self-quarantine for seven to 10 days if they don’t get tested after a trip, the agency said.
The C.D.C.’s guidance does not change the fact that many countries, including those in the European Union, still block most Americans from coming. Some are starting to make exceptions for those who are vaccinated. As of March 26, fully vaccinated Americans who can present proof of vaccination can visit Iceland, for example, and avoid border measures such as testing and quarantining, the country’s government said.
Some destinations and cruise lines already have started requiring that travelers be fully vaccinated. The cruise line Royal Caribbean is requiring passengers and crew members 18 or older to be vaccinated in order to board its ships, as are Virgin Voyages, Crystal Cruises and others.
For the moment, airlines are not requiring vaccinations for travel. But the idea has been much talked about in the industry.
Air travel bookings have been slowly increasing as more Americans get vaccinated. But it is mostly flights to and from small, regional vacation-destination airports that have been thriving, while large hub airports are seeing just a fraction of the travelers they did at this time last year. The new C.D.C. guidance is likely to boost air travel, but it will take until 2023 and 2024 before there is a return to the volumes of 2019, according to Airlines for America, an industry group.
On Thursday, the Transportation Security Administration reported more than 1.5 million travelers going through security checkpoints at airports, with the number of travelers increasing since early-to-mid March. While that is a significant increase compared with the 124,000 people screened a year ago, it is still 35 percent less than it was in 2019. On Sunday, the agency screened nearly 1.6 million people at airports.
On Sunday, nearly 1.6 million passengers boarded domestic flights, the most on any day since the pandemic began.
A vaccination center in Munich last week. So far, only about 11 percent of the European Union’s population has received at least one shot.Credit...Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times
For decades, the European Union has sold itself not just as the best antidote to another European war, but as “the Europe that protects,” arguing that by its collective size and shared sovereignty, it will deliver a better, longer and more prosperous life to all. With its vaccine rollout in chaos, that promise now looks hollow, and risks undermining the bloc’s credibility when it comes to major challenges.
In Belgium, Alain Walravens, 63, is waiting to be invited for a first coronavirus vaccination. So are Marion Pochet, 71, a retired translator, and her husband, Jean-Marc. At least, Ms. Pochet said, they both have had Covid-19, “so we have some immunity, at least for the moment.”
All three are sharply critical of the European Union, which took control of vaccine procurement and distribution and is widely considered to have done worse than its main partners, the United States and Britain, let alone Israel, which have all gotten vaccines into a much larger percentage of their populations than Europe has.
So far, only about 11 percent of the bloc’s population has received at least one vaccine shot, compared with 47 percent in Britain and 30 percent in the United States.
As European countries lock down again in a new wave of the virus, the reputation and credibility of the European Union and its executive arm, the European Commission, are much in play.
“This is the fault of the European Union,” said Mr. Walravens, an events organizer.
“In other countries where the vaccination is going faster, there are real results,” he added. “The number of cases is going down. Here in Belgium, the hospitals are getting saturated.”
Brussels has always taken pride in its technocratic rule setting for the world, but it has just lost Britain, the world’s fifth-largest economy, and even before the pandemic, it was suffering from low growth and a shrinking share of global trade.
After every crisis, whether it was Kosovo or the euro debt disaster, the usual answer is “more Europe.” But unless Brussels can turn matters around quickly, its vaccine crisis may cause member states to resist granting further authority to the European Commission.
“This has been catastrophic for the reputation of the European Union,” said Mark Leonard, the director of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Even Guy Verhofstadt, a European Parliament member and fierce European federalist, called the Commission’s performance “a fiasco.”
At the start of the crisis, as nations erected borders and hoarded protective equipment, masks and gowns, there was a huge desire for European cooperation, he said, “not because people liked the E.U. or its institutions, but because they were so absent.”
But the question now, he said, is buyer’s remorse. “The E.U. waded into an area with no expertise and competence and put a spotlight on itself,” he said. “In the minds of many who look at the U.K. and U.S. and Israel, they think we’re doing badly because of European cooperation, and that will have a corrosive impact in other areas.”
Data Source: The New York Times
April 2, 2021
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