Why Herd Immunity Depends on Vax Skeptics
Why Herd Immunity Depends on Vax Skeptics
Catch up in 7 mins: The Senate race gets messy + the SCV wants their license plates back + RDU wants cyclists out + the CDC issues new guidelines + Biden’s about to sign a real-live bill
Tues., March 10, 2021
Heads up, PRIMERs: I have a piece going live on The Assembly either later today or tomorrow. The site is behind a paywall—only $3/month, well worth it if you’re into smart writing about state politics—but you get a free story a month, and while I’m not saying you should definitely use yours on mine … actually, yeah, that’s what I’m saying.
My apologies again for missing several days last week. (See above for explanation.) I have a few more features in process, but I’ll try to keep absences to a minimum.
Today will be mostly clear, with a high of 69. This whole week looks pretty great, to be honest.
Today’s Number: 17.1 million
People who watched Oprah Winfrey’s explosive interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on Sunday.
+TODAY’S TOP 5
1. The NC Senate Race Could Get Messy
Since last we looked at the campaign for Richard Burr’s U.S. Senate seat, two more people have thrown their hats in—and neither is a Republican. Former U.S. Rep. Mark Walker still has the GOP primary to himself, for now.
One is an ex-Republican, however: Former Burr staffer Kimrey Rhinehardt, who left the party after the Capitol insurrection, is trying to mount a campaign as an independent. Amassing the required 84,000 signatures, especially in a pandemic that discourages door-to-door visitation, won’t be easy.
Another is a Democrat, the third. Richard Watkins, a 36-year-old virologist and founder of the Science Policy Action Network, is joining state Sens. Jeff Jackson and Erica Smith. Watkins challenged David Price in the 2018 congressional primary and came in third in a three-way race, with just 6.5%.
Smith is courting progressives and trying to convince Democrats that she can do better this year than in 2020, when she badly lost the primary to Cal Cunningham.
What it means: The biggest question mark on the Democratic side is whether former Chief Justice Cheri Beasley will run.
If she does, she and Jackson will be considered the frontrunners, while Smith angles for the progressive vote.
Smith will have to raise a ton of money and run a more organized campaign than she did in 2020 to close at the end.
As interesting is Rhinehardt. If she makes the ballot and has any impact at all, the Republican will almost certainly be the beneficiary.
As a rule, third-party candidates don’t win; they draw support from the top-tier candidates. (See Duverger’s Law.)
Rhinehardt’s links to Burr—whom the state GOP recently censured—are unlikely to bring many Republicans or NPAs to her banner who wouldn’t already consider voting for a Dem. Meanwhile, she’d give moderate Dems an excuse not to vote for someone who’s “too liberal.”
2. Sons of Confederate Veterans Want Their Not-Racist License Plates Back
The North Carolina chapter has had a rough year. First, they had their Silent Sam trust fund taken away by a mean judge. Then, the DMV announced that beginning Jan. 1, it would no longer issue the SCV’s specialty license plate “after determining that license plates bearing the Confederate battle flag have the potential to offend those who view them."
Yesterday, the SCV sued, arguing that … well, I’ll just let “Commander” Kevin Stone speak for himself:
Our legally registered emblem represents our membership and our shared family history. Hating our group’s logo is equivalent to hating our group’s members. Symbols can often have more than one meaning. To assume the Confederate Battle Flag is uniquely offensive is to validate only one viewpoint and thereby discriminate against others.
Under Stone’s logic, wouldn’t the DMV be required to manufacture swastika plates for the Neo-Nazi Pride Society or whatever? Symbols have more than one meaning, right? We can’t validate just one.
▶️ OTHER STATE NEWS
DPI notified school districts that it will allow students to use their preferred name instead of their legal name on most records. This is a big win for the LGBTQ community, which has been fighting misgendering and deadnaming. (N&O)
3. RDU Pushes for Fence to Keep Cyclists Out
There’s a piece of RDU-owned land adjacent to Umstead that cyclists have been using, well, forever. As I recall—I was out there once a few years ago—there’s a series of pretty hardcore bike trails, not for beginners, and also not authorized by the airport.
For years, RDU has been trying to fence off the property, citing liability and environmental concerns. Cyclists, hikers, and the Division of Parks and Recreation, however, have been lobbying to keep it open to the public. Last month, the Department of Environmental Quality sounded skeptical, too, saying there haven’t been any reported environmental problems.
On March 5, RDU responded to DEQ’s questions, reports the Triangle Business Journal (subscription). It wants regulators to expedite approval or release the airport from any liability associated with environmental damage.
RDU: “The need to prevent access to and use of the property from trespassers still exists in order to protect the property from further damage and RDU from any other potential safety hazards and liabilities. [Signs and patrols have] “not successfully stopped trespassers from accessing the property, rebuilding structures and trails and damaging the buffers, streams, and property.”
4. Herd Immunity Will Depend on GOP Vax Skeptics
After 500,000 deaths and a year of lockdowns, our return to something that looks like normalcy might depend on … your crazy aunt who keeps posting on Facebook that the COVID vaccine is Bill Gates’s way of controlling us with implanted microchips. Actually, less dramatically, herd immunity will likely depend on the third of Republican voters who say they’ll never get vaccinated.
“Margaret is a Republican—a fervent supporter of former president Donald Trump—and polls have repeatedly found that nearly one-third of Republicans share her staunch resistance to the coronavirus vaccines, although for a variety of reasons. Some, like Margaret, worry they were developed too quickly. Others argue without evidence that many vaccines are unsafe or will make them sick. Still more echo Trump’s repeated contention that the coronavirus threat is overblown and simply don’t trust the government’s involvement.”
“While other groups have also been wary about the shots, for instance, communities of color, polling shows that hesitancy has started to wane while GOP resistance to the vaccines remains relatively high. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released last month found that 28 percent of Republicans said they would ‘definitely not’ get vaccinated, and another 18 percent said they would ‘wait and see’ before getting a shot.”
“As a result, millions of Republicans could remain unvaccinated, a potential roadblock to efforts to achieve the high levels of immunity needed to stop the virus in the United States.”
▶️ OTHER COVID NEWS
The CDC issued long-awaited guidelines for fully vaccinated Americans. In short: They can “visit indoors with unvaccinated members of a single household at low risk of severe disease, without wearing masks or distancing,” or gather indoors with other vaccinated people. Long-distance travel is still discouraged. (WaPo)
5. House to Pass $1.9T COVID Bill Tonight
Unless something gets weird, that is. It will be the scaled-down version the Senate squeaked through this weekend, but such is life.
“A vote could happen Tuesday or perhaps Wednesday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters, adding the chamber is waiting for the Senate to transmit the legislation it amended. The timeline puts Congress on track to adopt the stimulus package before millions of Americans are set to lose unemployment benefits March 14.”
Things probably won’t get weird: “The [Senate’s] alterations initially appeared to frustrate more left-leaning lawmakers in the Democratic caucus, creating the potential for friction in the House, where Democrats only have five votes to spare. But liberal leaders appeared to bless the measure anyway, with Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chief of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, saying in a statement Saturday that it is ‘exactly what economists say is needed to jump-start our economy and the labor market.’” (WaPo)
▶️ EXTRA, EXTRA
My column this week looks at what happened in the Senate last week—and what that might tell us about the future of HR 1, the all-important voting-rights bill.
On Wednesday, House Democrats passed HR 1, the most comprehensive voting rights package in 50 years. It prohibits state restrictions on early and absentee voting, creates an automatic registration system, guarantees same-day registration, forces dark money groups to disclose donors, and requires states to use independent, bipartisan redistricting commissions.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is the ballgame. If Democrats don’t act while they have congressional majorities, they won’t get another chance.
To stop voter suppression, Senate Democrats will have to stop Republicans from suppressing a vote. Nuke the filibuster, or surrender.
Judging by their handling of the stimulus, surrender seems the safer bet.