What A Day: Close encounters of the preferred kind

Senate Democrats have passed the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package and the CDC has given fully vaccinated people permission to go (relatively) buck wild, a potent combination of events that could drive a sudden uptick in intergenerational hugs. 
 

• The American Rescue Plan passed in the Senate with zero Republican votes on Saturday, and will now head back to the House for a quick approval vote as early as Tuesday. The final package includes more targeted stimulus checks and $300 weekly unemployment payments, and provisions that will cut child poverty in half, increase subsidies for child care, help schools safely reopen, expand food stamps and rental assistance, invest in Native communities, and dramatically lower ACA premiums. It’s a monumental win for millions of working families.
   
• With its tens of billions of dollars to fund vaccine distribution and coronavirus testing and tracing, the bill is also a crushing defeat for coronavirus. The U.S. administered an average of 2.2 million vaccine doses per day over the last week (up from around 900,000 doses per day when Biden took office), and the resources that President Biden will sign off on later this week will further accelerate the rollout. Not a bad 54th week of March! Biden will deliver a primetime address on Thursday to mark the anniversary of the coronavirus crisis, and (presumably) take a bit of a victory lap.
   
• More shots will improve lives almost instantly. On Monday, the CDC released new guidelines for fully vaccinated people, which say that people who are two weeks past their final shot can safely gather with an unvaccinated, low-risk small group indoors, without masks or physical distancing. That will give many seniors the freedom to hug their children and grandchildren for the first time in a year—or to get wasted with a few other vaccinated seniors, we’re not telling anyone what to do. The CDC also advised vaccinated people to continue wearing masks in public, and not to travel long distances for hugs, just yet. 

That guidance should offer an additional incentive to folks who still aren’t sold on the vaccine, but as vaccinations speed up, the problem of vaccine hesitancy could start to loom a little larger. 
 

• While hesitancy in most communities has begun to wane as more and more people see others they know get the jab, polls have consistently found that nearly a third of Republican voters say they refuse to get the vaccine, for a variety of reasons. That’s a large enough group to potentially prevent the U.S. from reaching herd immunity, if pro-vaccine messaging from the Biden administration and state leaders doesn’t break through. 
   
• Part of what makes combatting vaccine hesitancy tricky is that it takes many forms: Some Trump supporters are nervous about the vaccine’s safety or side effects, some have fully bought into the quietly-vaccinated former president’s claim that the virus is a hoax, and others have a broader anti-vaxx ideology. Trump’s own words have been damaging enough, but online misinformation is another continuing problem, and not all of it is organic bullshit: Russian intelligence agencies have been actively spreading disinformation to undermine confidence in the Pfizer shot and other Western vaccines. 
   

This week, the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress will take major steps towards expanding vaccine access and clarifying exactly what that means for Americans who have been separated from their loved ones for a full year. The next hurdle will be convincing the people who have been hugging with reckless abandon all along. 

Perhaps you have heard that Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry aired on Sunday evening? It included a number of shocking-yet-very-believable bombshells about the British royal family’s racism and dysfunction—chief among them, the revelation that member(s) of the royal household expressed “concerns” over how dark the skin of Meghan’s then-unborn first child might be. (Oprah clarified on Monday that neither Queen Elizabeth nor Prince Philip were involved in those conversations.) Meghan also revealed that their son Archie was not offered a title or protection by the royal family, that she had contemplated suicide and was denied help because it “wouldn’t be good for the institution,” and that the royal family did nothing to correct false narratives about her in the tabloids. Also, Tyler Perry came to the rescue when the couple was abruptly stripped of royal security, which is less of a bombshell and more of a very fun detail to know. The royal family has yet to respond to the accusations, but in the meantime, here are some British people reacting to American pharmaceutical ads that aired during the interview. 

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) signaled on Sunday that he’s open to reforming the filibuster to make it more “painful” for Republicans to wield. Manchin’s still opposed to eliminating the filibuster altogether, but changing it to a “talking filibuster,” as he suggested, would still be a pretty huge deal: A senator would have to stand on the chamber floor and keep talking in order to hold up legislation. This is a decided pain in the ass, makes the obstruction plainly visible to voters who might not keep track of complicated Senate rules, and bills could still pass with a simple majority as soon as Republicans gave up. Manchin’s comments came after a number of Democrats like Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), faced with the prospect of H.R.1 stalling out in the Senate, spoke up in favor of filibuster reform for the first time. 

Abortion is essential, time-sensitive health care, and no one should have to risk needless exposure to a deadly virus to access it. That’s why we’re urging the Biden-Harris administration to address harms perpetrated by Trump, Trump-era – and expand access to abortion for all. Join us in urging the administration to take action now. Sign our petition.

While rates of COVID-19 infection soared across the country, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to reinstate a dangerous requirement that patients travel in person to pick up mifepristone – a safe and effective medication used for early abortion and miscarriage treatment. As a result, patients must risk needless exposure to the virus to access care.

This is particularly harmful for people of color and people with low incomes, who make up the majority of impacted patients and are also dying from COVID-19 at disproportionate rates due to centuries of structural racism and inequities.

The decision was cruel and indefensible, but also fixable. Sign the ACLU’s petition and demand that the Biden Administration ensure safe access to abortion today.

The Biden administration will offer at temporary protected status to thousands of Venezuelan immigrants already in the U.S. 

The American Rescue Plan includes the government’s single largest investment in Native American programs in U.S. history. 

The Conference of National Black Churches will partner with CVS to turn 20 Black churches into vaccination hubs in areas that lack a convenient pharmacy, and train 3000 pastors to provide effective vaccine education. 

The Biden administration has revoked a Trump-era policy that weakened federal protections for migratory birds.