Prognosis: Breakthrough

More than 150 years after the end of slavery in the U.S., the net worth of a typical white family is nearly six times greater than that of the average Black family. Season 3 of The Pay Check digs into into how we got to where we are today and what can be done to narrow the yawning racial wealth gap in the U.S.

Jackie Simmons and Rebecca Greenfield co-host the season, which kicks off with a personal story about land Jackie's family acquired some time after slavery that they're on the verge of losing. From there the series explores all the ways the wealth gaps manifests and the radical solutions, like affirmative action, quotas, and reparations, that can potentially lead to greater equality.

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Vaccine distribution still has the feel of a zero-sum game. Five days after Israel received 700,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, Pfizer told other non-U.S. customers that it would cut supplies while it briefly closed a facility in Belgium.

The disparity in vaccine allocation is the product of a company struggling to apportion doses while demand far exceeds supply. Stephanie Baker and Cynthia Koons reported for Bloomberg Businessweek that the company has determined how many doses a country gets through an opaque process that appears to involve a mix of order size, position in the queue, production forecasts, calls from world leaders, and of course the desire to make a profit.

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In recent months, GOP lawmakers have heaped criticism on Democratic governors for how they handled outbreaks at nursing homes early in the pandemic. Michigan Republicans, who have been hostile to Governor Gretchen Whitmer throughout the crisis, are now asking the state’s attorney general to investigate how she coped with that challenge.

Republicans say that people died unnecessarily thanks to Whitmer’s order that nursing homes readmit residents with Covid-19 if they had capacity and quarantine capabilities. David Welch reports that Michigan’s fatality rate was lower than the national average, and many of those on the pandemic’s front line dispute the assertions.

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Now that Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine has been cleared by regulators, the company needs to ramp up doses fast. J and J is looking for manufacturing partnerships to increase supply. Riley Griffin spoke to the company’s chief executive officer, Alex Gorsky about his plan to immunize 20 million Americans by the end of the month, and 100 million by the end of June.

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New York City’s museums, sports arenas and entertainment venues are slowly coming back to life. But the sector has contracted dramatically under the pressure of the global pandemic. Jobs in arts, entertainment and recreation fell the most of all the city’s economic sectors, erasing a decade of gains in what was one of New York’s most vibrant industries. Spencer Norris explains what that means for cultural institutions, and the city that was one of the sector’s biggest boosters.

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Almost a month after U.S. vaccination campaigns ramped up to give Covid-19 shots to more than a million people a day, their second doses are coming due. That’s putting a strain on state rollouts, and leaving some people without complete immunizations. John Tozzi reports that as President Joe Biden accelerates purchases and distribution, critical weaknesses in the system are starting to show.

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Nine vaccines have proved effective at protecting people from developing symptoms of Covid-19. But we don’t know yet how good they are at preventing asymptomatic infections, and keeping vaccinated people from passing the virus on to others. The good news is that preliminary signs suggest they do at least some of both. Jason Gale discusses what we’re learning about how the shots work, as vaccination campaigns continue around the world.

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The U.S. vaccine supply is poised to double in the coming weeks and months, according to an analysis by Bloomberg, allowing a broad expansion of doses administered across the country. Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers and U.S. officials have accelerated their production timelines, and Drew Armstrong reports that the spigots are about to open, providing hundreds of millions of doses just as pharmacies and mass-vaccination sites become more equipped to administer them.

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As vaccines roll out across the U.S., logistics and supply are just some of the challenges in making sure everyone has equal access to the vaccine. Angelica LaVito reports how one Boston health system is also confronting another major problem in vaccine distribution: a long history of racial inequity in the U.S. healthcare system.

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Doctors and nurses can feel as if they’re living in two worlds. One in which patients are getting sick and dying from the coronavirus, and another in which people deny the virus is real. Emergency room physician Mike Hunihan describes what it’s like to live and work with that dissonance. Today's special episode is a collaboration with Tradeoffs, a podcast about our costly, complicated and counter-intuitive health care system.

Subscribe to the Tradeoffs podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Or check them out at tradeoffs.org.

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