October 2021

The U.S. death toll passes 700,000 early in the month as the summer Delta surge begins to ebb. The New York Times runs a piece titled “Red Covid,” arguing that deaths are now concentrated in less-vaccinated, rural, Republican-leaning areas, a framing echoed across the press and reinforced by Brookings, which casts red-state governors as politically vulnerable for their handling of the virus. Some readers note how neatly a public-health story is being mapped onto partisan lines.

Merck opens the month announcing that its antiviral pill molnupiravir cut hospitalizations and deaths by roughly half in people recently infected. Reuters and Science call it a “game changer.” The figure comes from an interim analysis rather than final results, and the Financial Times flags the drug’s limitations even as Merck seeks emergency authorization and agrees to license the formula to drugmakers in poorer countries.

Boosters dominate the vaccine news, though the science is contested inside the government itself. On October 1 top F.D.A. scientists publicly question whether boosters are imminently needed, and Politico reports days later that senior experts privately urge the Biden administration to scale back the campaign. By mid-month an F.D.A. panel endorses a half-dose Moderna booster, on October 20 the agency authorizes mixing and matching, and on the 22nd the U.S. begins boosting millions. Federal vaccine advisers openly disagree over whether the goal is to stop infection or only to keep people out of the hospital.

The booster push arrives alongside data that complicate the official message. Studies find Pfizer’s protection waning after six months, a UC Davis analysis reports similar viral loads in vaccinated and unvaccinated people, and a British household study suggests the fully vaccinated pass Delta to housemates at close to the same rate. This sits awkwardly next to earlier assurances that vaccination sharply curbs transmission.

Vaccine-mandate deadlines are the recurring story of October, and the real-world attrition looks different from the confident predictions. American, Alaska, and JetBlue join United in requiring shots. NPR reports on October 7 that when jobs are on the line even the hesitant get vaccinated, yet on October 24 the same outlet reports thousands of workers choosing to be fired instead. Chicago says more than a third of its police defy the mandate, Washington State fires its football coach, over 150 Texas hospital workers are dismissed or resign, and New York City firefighters protest at the mayor’s home as their deadline looms.

Over one October weekend Southwest Airlines cancels more than 2,000 flights. The airline blames weather in Florida and air-traffic-control staffing, and both the company and the pilots’ union deny any organized job action tied to the incoming federal mandate, even as the union is in court fighting that mandate. Passengers and commentators draw their own conclusions about the timing.

On October 11 Texas Governor Greg Abbott orders a ban on all COVID-19 vaccine mandates in the state, including those imposed by private businesses, framing it as a question of personal liberty. American and Southwest, both headquartered in Texas, say they will follow the federal requirement instead. Abbott tests positive for the virus the same week.

Colin Powell dies on October 18 of COVID-19 complications while fully vaccinated, at 84. His death is put to competing uses within hours: some point to it as evidence the vaccines fail, while commentators move quickly to head off what they call misinformation, stressing that Powell had multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that blunts vaccine response. Both camps tend to argue past the fact that he was elderly and seriously immunocompromised.

Attention turns to young children. California announces on October 1 that it will be the first state to require the vaccine for schoolchildren once fully approved. An F.D.A. panel backs Pfizer’s low-dose shot for ages 5 to 11 on the 26th, and the agency authorizes it on the 29th. The risk-benefit case for healthy children draws open debate, given their very low risk of severe disease and the myocarditis signal that had already led Sweden, Denmark, and Finland to pause Moderna for younger age groups earlier in the month.

Efforts to police speech intensify. YouTube bans all anti-vaccine content on October 14, Singapore invokes its anti-fake-news law against a vaccine-skeptic website, and Amnesty International warns that pandemic-era limits on expression risk becoming permanent. Later reporting shows Facebook telling the White House to focus on the “facts” about vaccine misinformation while declining to share key data on what its users were actually seeing.

On October 21 the N.I.H. acknowledges in a letter to Congress that it funded work in Wuhan on bat coronaviruses and that a grantee failed to report an experiment in which a modified virus made mice sicker. The New York Post, Reason, and Vanity Fair frame this as an admission of gain-of-function research after months of Fauci’s denials, while the Washington Post disputes that characterization and Senator Rand Paul claims vindication. Fauci spends the month fielding other controversies, from beagle-experiment claims to a poll finding a majority of voters think he should resign.

Francis Collins announces he is stepping down as N.I.H. director after twelve years, leaving the top of the U.S. research establishment vacant as these questions mount.

Abroad, New Zealand abandons its zero-COVID elimination strategy under pressure from Delta, a shift a Maori leader calls a “death warrant” for her people. Russia reports record daily deaths, orders a non-working week, and confines unvaccinated Moscow residents over 60 to their homes. In Britain, a parliamentary report calls the government’s early handling one of the worst public-health failures in the country’s history, blaming “groupthink.”

Late in the month a U.S. intelligence assessment concludes the virus was probably not engineered as a bioweapon, while conceding its origins may never be known without more cooperation from China.

Key Dates and Stories:

• October 1: Top F.D.A. scientists question the imminent need for booster shots, The New York Times
• October 1: California becomes first state to announce COVID-19 vaccine requirements for schools
• October 2: COVID-19 deaths eclipse 700,000 in the U.S. as delta rages, PBS
• October 5: Dr. Francis Collins steps down as NIH head, PBS
• October 6: Top Covid experts privately urge the Biden administration to scale back the booster campaign, Politico
• October 11: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott orders a ban on all COVID-19 vaccine mandates in the state, NPR
• October 18: Colin Powell dies of COVID-19 complications while fully vaccinated, PBS
• October 20: FDA authorizes mixing and matching COVID boosters, PBS
• October 21: NIH acknowledges funding bat-coronavirus work in Wuhan and an unreported experiment that made mice sicker, Science
• October 24: Thousands of workers opt to be fired rather than take the vaccine, NPR
• October 26: FDA panel backs Pfizer’s low-dose vaccine for kids 5 to 11, PBS
• October 29: Poll finds a majority of voters say Fauci should resign, The Hill
• October 29: US intelligence rejects the bioweapon claim but says the virus’s origins may never be known, The Guardian