Coronavirus infections in several U.S. states have begun to rise once more after months of declining cases. Scientists fear yet another surge as the race to vaccinate competes with a fatigued population eager to return to normalcy. The city of Miami Beach, Florida over the weekend symbolized the problems of reopening too soon and in a patchwork way as uncontrolled crowds of people swarmed into the city to enjoy their Spring Break. Miami Beach officials imposed a curfew that has now been extended for 3 weeks. According to the New York Times, “Officials went so far as to approve closing the famed Ocean Drive for four nights a week until April 12…The strip, frequented by celebrities and tourists alike, was the scene of a much-criticized skirmish on Saturday night in which police officers used pepper balls to disperse a large crowd of sometimes unruly and mostly unmasked revelers just hours after the curfew had been introduced.” Police arrested more than a 1,000 people. Like other Republican run states, Florida did not seriously enforce shelter-in-place orders and mask ordinances. A recent editorial in the Florida Times-Union called the state’s pandemic response “a horror show,” and offered the following assessment: “Almost 2 million cases and more than 32,000 dead. Businesses closed, people brought to the brink, with little help from a state unemployment system that was designed to fail.”

In other pandemic news, the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine, produced in collaboration with Oxford University has finally been assessed in the United States. A large clinical trial conducted in the U.S. concluded that the vaccine offered, “100% efficacy against severe or critical disease and hospitalization,” and had, “79% vaccine efficacy at preventing symptomatic COVID-19.” The AstraZeneca vaccine had been widely used across Europe. But because the vaccine had been associated with rare instances of blood clots – 37 cases out of 17 million—the resulting pause in Europe to conduct an assessment, has now resulted in a massive loss of public trust in the vaccine. A YouGov poll found majorities did not trust the vaccine in Germany, Italy and Spain. However the UK government has moved full-speed ahead with vaccinating its population using the AstraZeneca shot and tensions with Europe, already exacerbated because of Brexit, are now even higher. Here in the United States, vaccine skepticism in Black and brown communities has diminished since last year as per new polls. Non-white communities are now as likely as white Americans to trust the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 va...