August 23, 2021

The FDA grants full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the first COVID shot to move past emergency authorization. Coverage treats the milestone less as new safety information than as a compliance lever: CNN’s headline says the approval opens “the door to more vaccine mandates,” and the Washington Post frames it as a way to persuade the hesitant. Within hours New York City mandates the shot for public school teachers and staff.

The reassurance runs up against its own evidence. Al Jazeera reports that heavily vaccinated Israel is still struggling with a surge, and the New York Times describes a country getting “a crash course in scientific uncertainty” as guidance shifts. Another Times piece finds hospital workers — people who had cared for COVID patients for a year — among those refusing the vaccine even under threat of losing their jobs.

NPR reports that Mississippi is asking residents to stop dosing themselves with the livestock formulation of ivermectin after a jump in poison-control calls. In Australia, a rural council has impounded rescue dogs shot dead to stop shelter volunteers from travelling to collect them, an early sign of how far containment rules could be pushed.