The Olympics are coming. COVID infections are rising. Was Japan's strategy the right one?
SEOUL, South Korea – In a week's time, the now-anachronistically named 2020 Olympic Games will finally get underway.
It's a moment Japan has long been preparing for — since March of last year, when the Tokyo Games were pushed back because of the pandemic; since 2016, when Japan's then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took the baton from Rio de Janeiro in a Super Marioget-up; since 2013, when the country first clinched its hard-fought bid.
Even so, the country heads into the Olympics with a sense of resignation and a reckoning over how its leaders handled a pandemic that is marring what should be a marquee moment for national pride. Many Japanese are thinking less about races and gold medals than the fact that Tokyo is in a fourth state of emergency. Coronavirus infections are again on the rise, and supply problems have stalled a vaccination program.
Much has changed since May 2020, when Abe touted as a success the "Japan model" of battling COVID-19. Despite the long-standing due date of the Olympics — with a literal clock counting down the days in central Tokyo — the country finds itself struggling to defend its decisions, making eleventh-hour revisions and pushing ahead with a subdued, spectator-less Games with heavy restrictions on visiting athletes and its own citizens.
—Los Angeles Times.
Haiti receives first COVID-19 vaccine doses from the US amid political crisis
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration delivered 500,000 doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines to Haiti on Wednesday, hopingto provide relief to the Caribbean nation roiled by the coronavirus pandemic and an ongoing political crisis.
Haiti was the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean — and one of five in the world, according to the World HealthOrganization — where the government had not yet administered one jab of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Officials with the Biden administration and the Pan American Health Organization said the shipment arrived in Haiti at a facility run by COVAX, an international organization working to guarantee access to coronavirus vaccines.
“Today, thanks to the U.S. commitment to playing a leading role in ending the pandemic everywhere, 500,000 doses of Moderna arrived in Haiti from the United States,” a White House official told McClatchy. “The United States will send a significant amount of additional doses to Haiti soon.”
—McClatchy Washington Bureau.
Breyer says he hasn’t decided when to retire from Supreme Court
Justice Stephen Breyer told CNN he hasn’t decided when he will retire from the Supreme Court, a stance certain to disappointliberals who have been calling for the 82-year-old to step down and let President Joe Biden fill the vacancy.
In an interview with CNN’s Joan Biskupic in Plainfield, New Hampshire, the court’s oldest justice said his health would be the primary consideration in his eventual decision, with “the court” being a second factor. He answered with a simple “no” when asked whether he had decided when to retire.
—Bloomberg News.
‘No courage or skill:’ Trump denies plotting coup and trashes Gen. Mark Milley
Former President Donald Trump denied reports he plotted a coup after his election loss — and said he wouldn’t want Gen.Mark Milley on his side if he were going to refuse to leave office.
Trump derided as “so ridiculous!” reports in a new White House book that he wanted to seize power through unconstitutionalmeans to avoid handing over power to President Biden.
—New York Daily News
