Reopening America

President Biden’s numbers have not been improving much and it seems to be the very thing he promised to fix, the pandemic, that’s dragging him down. While there have been some really bad headlines with Afghanistan and immigration, the pandemic looms large as people experience fatigue with continued regulations. Christopher Cadelago, White House reporter at Politico, joins us for why Democrats are worried that Biden can’t shake the pandemic.

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Pharmaceutical company Merck is seeking emergency use authorization for its Covid-19 pill. If approved, it would be the first oral antiviral for Covid. Other treatments such as remdesivir and monoclonal antibody treatments both require an intravenous infusion. The pill reduces risk of hospitalization by 50%. Riley Griffin, healthcare reporter at Bloomberg News, joins us for more on this pill that directly targets the virus.

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America's supply chain is broken and there is no better example than looking at all of the ships sitting off the coast of California. The pandemic caused a major shift in consumer spending and it triggered a huge influx of imports and it's all bottlenecked due to lack of coordination and worker shortages. Ships are at ports waiting to be unloaded, not enough workers there can offload containers in a timely manner, and a shortage of truck drivers is delaying shipments to the rest of the country. This all results in price hikes for everyone and possible shortages for holiday shopping. David Lynch, global economics correspondent at The Washington Post, joins us for the broken supply chain.

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Scientists are constantly working on averting the next pandemic and one avenue that is being pursued is a so-called pan-coronavirus vaccine. This would be a shot that could block many related viruses all in one. Although still years away, they are trying to develop a vaccine to protect you from everything from Covid variants to the common cold. Betsy McKay, senior writer at the WSJ, joins us for the effort to make a universal vaccine.

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Another story about the growing costs of being unvaccinated. A woman in Colorado is being denied a kidney transplant because both she and her donor are unvaccinated. UCHealth said she would be inactivated on the kidney transplant list unless she began the process of getting a vaccine. Studies have shown that Covid-19 can be especially deadly for recipients of kidney transplants with a mortality rate of 20-30%. Hannah Knowles, reporter at The Washington Post, joins us for more.

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Checking in on our furry friends and the people who help keep them healthy… the pandemic has caused all sorts of backlogs at veterinary offices. Vet staff has been increasingly stressed out as there have been spikes in demand for services, slowed-down curbside protocols, labor shortages, and pets having to be turned away in some cases. HG Watson, contributor to the Guardian, joins for what to know.

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As the deadline for many vaccinate mandates are coming soon, many still resisting their shots are looking for exemptions. Religious exemptions are one way that people are seeking to get out of the mandates, but they may not be as easy to get as some may think. Employers have a lot of discretion when granting these. Employers have to provide reasonable accommodations, but they can also probe whether a person's beliefs are sincere and deny it if they think they are not. Many objections are based in the belief that the vaccines contain fetal cell lines, which they don't. Andrea Hsu, labor and workplace correspondent at NPR, joins us for more.

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Where have all the restaurant and retail workers impacted by the pandemic gone? Many of them went to work in the marijuana industry. There is now an estimated 321,000 workers in the legal cannabis industry. Workers in this industry say they are finding better hours, benefits, and more opportunities to advance. Abha Bhattarai, national retail reporter at The Washington Post, joins us for marijuana jobs have been a refuge for retail and restaurant workers.

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United Airlines has the strictest vaccine mandates of all the U.S. airlines and just announced that they will move to fire almost 600 workers who failed to comply. The company has about 67,000 employees and about 96% of them have been vaccinated. Others who sought exemptions for religious or medial reasons will be placed on temporary unpaid leave. Leslie Josephs, airline reporter at CNBC, joins us for how the ball is dropping for those refusing the mandate.

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The pandemic has amplified the social anxiety that some young people are experiencing, and it was intensified by the isolation many underwent. They aren’t necessarily scared about catching Covid, but just have the intense fear of being watched and judged. Eduardo Medina, reporter at the NY Times, joins us for post pandemic social anxiety.

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