July 23, 2021

The Tokyo Olympics open under a state of emergency, spectators banned and athletes still testing positive on arrival. The same day, data from abroad complicates the vaccine story. Israel reports Pfizer’s shot is just 39% effective against Delta infection, though it still holds up against severe illness. Reuters finds that three-quarters of recent cases in Singapore are among the vaccinated, and a Chinese airport cluster in Nanjing turns out to be mostly breakthrough infections. The findings sit awkwardly against months of assurances that the vaccinated could neither catch nor pass the virus.

An AP-NORC poll finds most unvaccinated Americans simply do not want the shot, a result that undercuts the assumption that hesitancy is mainly a matter of access or misinformation to be cleared away. Reuters reports that Americans are left confused by conflicting mask advice as counties and cities revive their own rules ahead of any federal move.

The Texas Tribune documents a grimmer failure: seven of the state’s nine veterans homes recorded fatality rates of 25% or higher during the pandemic, far above the statewide nursing-home average, in facilities overseen by state officials.