ANONYMOUS - OUR VOICE

Welcome to the Drugs Issue of The Highlight

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Last winter, within days of the Supreme Court’s decision to hear <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/dobbs-v-jackson-womens-health-organization/">Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</a>, an abortion case that could gut access to reproductive care, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would allow abortion drugs to be available by mail, without an in-person doctors’ visit.
The move was heralded as a solution to the prospect of diminished access, though states are already gearing up to curtail these pills, too. The news, however, also illuminated just how drugs might take on a more important role in society, intersecting politics and personal health and choice in surprising new ways.
The March issue of the Highlight was inspired by exactly this idea. With each of its stories, it asks, “Are drugs the answer?”
We look at not only the telehealth startups aiming to provide pregnant people with abortion medication under increasingly draconian state laws, but also the relatively newly accessible Covid-19 antiviral drugs and the role they will have to play in the future of the pandemic, if the government can get them to the people who need them most. Paxlovid and molnupiravir, the two therapeutic antivirals have shown varying but promising levels of effectiveness in stunting Covid-19’s dangers. So, <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22968986/covid-drugs-paxlovid-molnupiravir-health">what role could these therapeutics have in spelling the end of the pandemic</a>? Could they work in tandem with vaccines, or perhaps be an option for those who will not take the vaccine or do not have access to it?
We also examine the trend toward wider acceptance of once-illicit drugs such as psilocybin (a.k.a. mushrooms), LSD, and cannabis within the wellness sphere. They’re marketed in increasingly inoffensive ways, from gummies to chocolates to tiny mints, with just a few milligrams a dose, and some are touting their ability to address everything from alcohol dependence to depression.
Finally, our cover story looks at a question that has been bubbling for years among advocates, lawmakers, and activists: Why can’t the US figure out one federal policy to legalize marijuana? Several years into states’ grand experiment to legalize and regulate cannabis, we know this much: The tax windfall could be huge; it could swiftly reverse the criminalization of brown and Black Americans that has continued under the Drug War; and it would open doors to medical research, among many other benefits. Bipartisan support for federal legalization also suggests that drugs, in the case of cannabis in particular, could be the answer. Overseeing a previously unregulated industry under national cannabis policy, however, is laced with more inequity and tension than it might seem.
Keep reading for more:
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<h3><a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22968986/covid-drugs-paxlovid-molnupiravir-health">It’s not too late for new Covid-19 drugs to change the pandemic</a></h3>
The new, easy-to-take antivirals are now on pharmacy shelves. This is who they stand to help the most.
By Katherine Harmon Courage
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<figure class="e-image"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1648496728_177_3814" data-cdata='{"asset_id":23333763,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4bXN7bwKTFUc4xMo2D4_pttPVsA=/0x0:2500x1875/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jUFBTGvv3P3tYoB3seJpCJMKP6k=/0x0:2500x1875/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NljP-mCdY-XQDNM4UBDH01AVv5k=/0x0:2500x1875/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jy01kKPJpSAK-lM4spZT4FchQSk=/0x0:2500x1875/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/73EL5tgImwF9VvQRuaUNnloII_0=/0x0:2500x1875/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bbxcZreurl5EJlI0mvq9IqKcZSU=/0x0:2500x1875/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/X80IyV6dBo1LmqRTzKQfijcFtIA=/0x0:2500x1875/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rnBdWUh9DHrb6KxC9Rf-FNN6PTw=/0x0:2500x1875/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_KYWwUIgnuzkZ6hImRxZBB5DGzs=/0x0:2500x1875/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="A USPS mail truck drives through a field of pills to make a delivery at a residence protected by barbed wire. A woman watches from a second floor balcony." data-upload-width="2500" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/in0nNgXmB-1sHtVTO2krtVxWVSA=/0x0:2500x1875/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/et_f7pqK5cZaGOuUB8qegevMr4E=/0x0:2500x1875/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Nb-QrCve9n6AUtFOWDAaTCDbjVc=/0x0:2500x1875/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zaPRP0zu7BfNWcU_GPeoysH6JYY=/0x0:2500x1875/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/m5ZsgQ7VRHLL0-r8VNrW7-dgwaU=/0x0:2500x1875/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Yecek2mFM9jXcAsq__AsYYv2RYc=/0x0:2500x1875/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7A3Fo4s63adJmtzuvMjGpVIjUN0=/0x0:2500x1875/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VOSKBXfpBvN_iTe8RiBb8TPM9IA=/0x0:2500x1875/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/K_sHNlOFPcp5j50G2nsOA_ZxC2o=/0x0:2500x1875/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UWnAaYbLbRjOsJnGdEhIA2pT5fw=/0x0:2500x1875/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2500x1875):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23333763/MAR9_Vox_Final_1.jpg 1920w" /></picture> <cite>Paige Vickers for Vox</cite></figure>
<h3>The FDA made mail-order abortion pills legal. Access is still a nightmare. (Coming Tuesday)</h3>
Restrictive states have already set their sights on a new wave of telehealth companies that were supposed to be a panacea for a post-Roe world.
By Julia Craven
<hr class="p-entry-hr" />
<figure class="e-image"><span class="e-image__image" data-original="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1648496728_4908_3815" data-cdata='{"asset_id":23301392,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/__c2uXP4BD2UcF7NTznJmph0tCw=/0x0:2400x1350/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/b5r1wCyXcr6Ix-SxjC4ptfyIjZ8=/0x0:2400x1350/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/pKdmJlxcjBLS_h2x-Cnk5M4gTW8=/0x0:2400x1350/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/TPm69ldttcXrkDs8azoVNe7qJew=/0x0:2400x1350/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Z4U-aY4ERXzVtPY8Gx4GnkCG_uY=/0x0:2400x1350/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3kn18EFRoSuFZSx3_Zt_gDTkW6E=/0x0:2400x1350/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8ZllpSyAa7Mj1jQZh2hNLPya-aY=/0x0:2400x1350/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/w5O8Ze72iOOhVpc-5vlxvgy_j2E=/0x0:2400x1350/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dHFDWR2WsfdK4zWuEbjSG3bJ4FM=/0x0:2400x1350/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="A person in a space suit on a mysterious planet covered in mushrooms while cannabis-mint stars twinkle in the background." data-upload-width="2400" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KtqMu4xlWktqBCQJ28j5xwBKV_w=/0x0:2400x1350/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gu5t6R-3parLAuXagqCz6mUkgDk=/0x0:2400x1350/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZG5qBPNbnbsUb71L2nvq806VKgE=/0x0:2400x1350/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/OMMuNejKqmWu4AdGyyHEiISrmOY=/0x0:2400x1350/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yH-c5Vb4qTkr92wexMK-DC0kvWE=/0x0:2400x1350/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VSGUxLUxt2EYTt7mkDykc0wqDLc=/0x0:2400x1350/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/LU_lbVSZqYcHSybJBrgatSx5XCY=/0x0:2400x1350/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gFMEQMdlb62UUqN8J67TVy5Jcj4=/0x0:2400x1350/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rrNEqasiFA9zVB2xkb6L_y7LPME=/0x0:2400x1350/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Z-ViVu8y4-jNcZ4iOANGPOxm9AQ=/0x0:2400x1350/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2400x1350):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23301392/Rebecca_Hendin_Vox_Drugs_Legal_Sober_Highs_Weed_Mushrooms_Moon_Astronaut_Space_Flag_Illustration_1_2400.jpg 1920w" /></picture> <cite>Rebecca Hendin for Vox</cite></figure>
<h3>The new sober-ish (Coming Wednesday)</h3>
Tiny doses of magic mushrooms, LSD, and cannabis have hit wellness culture, while the stigma around the drugs recedes.
By Luke Winkie
<hr class="p-entry-hr" />
<figure class="e-image"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1648496728_1787_3816" data-cdata='{"asset_id":23314950,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/n2XhxqEHRt2tdZa_70GtG28fUPE=/0x0:2794x1571/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Ic8Qo9o8UhNxXTxQxZfTHQt7JYQ=/0x0:2794x1571/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dU7GsKsGvdhpZ4Hlbo3bSp-eMCQ=/0x0:2794x1571/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MBNgXDTmrM2YUDrXONTkeoeaEXI=/0x0:2794x1571/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ohW7gQLNlVz5yDzhk2i5l0FiMhk=/0x0:2794x1571/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FpoTVAa6EBYS9FlOkf-7e-G8tgc=/0x0:2794x1571/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tcUJagQr19Q4D22vEy7yQqTu0O4=/0x0:2794x1571/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_iFZKZA8m16hJgbbZW2XaMDcQw8=/0x0:2794x1571/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/O6zQ0Kou7FhuCKg-HrPvqVMJUFA=/0x0:2794x1571/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="Illustration showing a judge’s gavel coming down on a cannabis leaf." data-upload-width="2794" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/aEh4PgyjoDFtACoQ0u_AFDKUtus=/0x0:2794x1571/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WTNsB-nujc_rXUrnAxiYqEpMHks=/0x0:2794x1571/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-eNlNL_tACzVWVfflQDirtVxA2Q=/0x0:2794x1571/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vyNLOFSb1onvnXPa1L8luehDh44=/0x0:2794x1571/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5pijK5gALYhv-EFDyAI60qhNh8Q=/0x0:2794x1571/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GmTlDJLqiFwdxWfD2XowkYLDQm4=/0x0:2794x1571/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FtxrtyfCGzuFJq91xykahlLvSzU=/0x0:2794x1571/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ETM2vfn9KlGru9HgLbuSwaBNF_Y=/0x0:2794x1571/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2T8BIBsr8X6exRVeCLVbGih8o7w=/0x0:2794x1571/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/p-aD8Syy2Op_2Y0rt5u1O9Z1hls=/0x0:2794x1571/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2794x1571):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23314950/Deliverable_V2.jpg 1920w" /></picture> <cite>Pablo Delcan for Vox</cite></figure>
<h3>Why can’t we figure out one federal policy to legalize marijuana? (Coming Thursday)</h3>
Public opinion, lawmakers, and states are aligned that it might be time to legalize cannabis. So, how hard is it to finally get it done?
By Mary Jane Gibson
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/features/22989349/drugs-issue">https://www.vox.com/features/22989349/drugs-issue</a>

vox Welcome to the Drugs Issue of The Highlight

Last winter, within days of the Supreme Court’s decision to hear Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , an abortion case that co...

It’s not too late for new Covid-19 drugs to change the pandemic

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<figure class="e-image"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1648498692_1217_17541" data-cdata='{"asset_id":21899595,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/D-jPReB2aZWDRsw1ZyW1yTRIhks=/0x0:909x278/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/PPOHuk1i6lKh0t24EJpN4d4MG6s=/0x0:909x278/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GHWG7IAvpNo4oIBaDHADGLYUiFs=/0x0:909x278/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YIvdh3Lw8k42sBoyK5BaxFAwkkk=/0x0:909x278/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zJ8jXodR-2fMjB3q6xCpkKZj4dk=/0x0:909x278/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/xeVoPRROa33_xQ7aG-z5hT2jZfU=/0x0:909x278/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/n2Tk9HJBj4LNop1iXGDRluWxwTM=/0x0:909x278/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/BZUx8E-I2DkqyH58q_rh7JyaqOc=/0x0:909x278/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Zdfq63K4AK9LdTyDv3fQL0AO1bw=/0x0:909x278/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="" data-upload-width="909" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/diGo6w0rEymdaM13vLDktJ40X84=/0x0:909x278/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CfJJIPFi91BrQS2dHBl6-aTKSns=/0x0:909x278/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/pAViUGXvr95DazUaYsrmfjboQMI=/0x0:909x278/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gUuFk5b3PJoqCBsfQTyispj8wRE=/0x0:909x278/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FQdJl4dKkrVPYcH6-nmkRrcWuJI=/0x0:909x278/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/AaT-4n1TnJXoz7FtlMhw6FAiqgY=/0x0:909x278/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/q9rAKMVRmKGTadRv0jGdpAx0wW4=/0x0:909x278/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-xl3J1pIya3ayEcHs_D3UOi_CUI=/0x0:909x278/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/E-YT0E40jstYraQXlQP-nJomki0=/0x0:909x278/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/X_zdWCFMG8XtT598kuo4H9UfC_Y=/0x0:909x278/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:909x278):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21899595/VOX_The_Highlight_Box_Logo_Horizontal.png 1920w" /></picture></figure>
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Part of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/features/22989349/drugs-issue">Drugs Issue</a> of <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight">The Highlight</a>, our home for ambitious stories that explain our world.
In January, New York City <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/30/nyregion/nyc-covid-antiviral-pills-delivery.html">launched a program</a> to provide Covid-19 treatments to residents at high risk of being hospitalized or killed by the virus — delivered free, to their door.
It was a potentially revolutionary moment in the pandemic’s trajectory, possible only because, at the close of 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization to the first two oral antiviral drugs people can take, at home upon Covid-19 diagnosis, <a href="https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/management/clinical-management/nonhospitalized-adults%E2%80%94therapeutic-management/">before they get sick enough to be hospitalized</a>.
Paxlovid and molnupiravir, two therapeutic antivirals shown in studies to have varying levels of effectiveness in stunting Covid-19’s dangers for those most at risk, represent a new weapon against a devastating virus that not only <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/1/26/22900907/omicrons-warning-pandemic-faster-vaccines-response">spreads with unnerving ease</a> (much more readily than even the 1918 pandemic flu strain) but also has proven so difficult to treat.
Doctors have gotten better at preventing deaths in the severely ill than they were at the beginning of the pandemic, but many people — hundreds every day in the United States alone — are <a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailydeaths">still dying from the disease</a>. There is simply no surefire cure for someone who lands in the hospital.
Although <a href="https://combatcovid.hhs.gov/what-are-monoclonal-antibodies">monoclonal antibodies</a>, which help the body fight an infection, have been available for high-risk patients since November 2020, they require IV infusion at a specialized facility, as does the antiviral remdesivir, which demands infusions on three consecutive days, making them much harder for people, especially those who lack reliable transportation or paid time off from work, to access than pills they can take at home.
The new oral antivirals, which arrived with considerably less fanfare than vaccines in late 2020, have the potential to reshape the contours of the pandemic going forward — not just for those at high risk, but also in surprising ways for those who aren’t. Their arrival also marks a potential new era of renewed investment in broadly useful antivirals that could fight not just Covid-19, but also other deadly viruses that have yet to emerge. However, delivering them equitably and in a very short time frame, and the looming threat of resistance, suggest that they face a road pockmarked with challenges.
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<figcaption>Pharmacy manager Oscar Uribe shows off a package of Pfizer’s Paxlovid pills in Chicago in January, not long after the antiviral medication received emergency authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration.</figcaption>
<cite>Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images</cite></figure>
It wasn’t until the 1960s, 30 years after the first commercially available antibiotics, that the first <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4978613/">virus-disarming medications</a> hit the market (the first was a <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaophthalmology/article-abstract/627495">topical drug</a> because it was <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/immunology-and-microbiology/idoxuridine#:~:text=Idoxuridine%20and%20Trifluridine&text=They%20have%20been%20used%20to,DNA%20synthesis%20are%20equally%20affected.">too toxic to ingest</a>).
Part of the <a href="https://knowablemagazine.org/article/health-disease/2021/challenges-antiviral-treatments">lag</a> was because of the slippery nature of viruses. Unlike bacteria, viruses aren’t, in themselves, alive. Rather, they persist and multiply by taking over a living organism’s cells.
“People think, ‘It’s a germ, why can’t you just eradicate it?’” said <a href="https://directory.sph.umn.edu/bio/sph-a-z/rebecca-wurtz">Rebecca Wurtz</a>, an infectious disease doctor and population health expert at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.
Disentangling a virus from the cell it has taken over, however, is extremely tricky: The microscopic needle to thread in developing safe, effective antivirals is to hobble the virus but not damage the host cells it is hijacking. To do it, antivirals can take aim at things like the very specific enzymes the virus uses to make copies of itself, which is how molnupiravir works. “When you’re trying to counteract their activity, it’s a very razor-thin edge,” Wurtz said.
Nevertheless, researchers have continued over the years to develop new <a href="https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/drugs/21531-antivirals">antivirals</a>. These drugs can help treat, with varying degrees of efficacy, a multitude of infections, including shingles, herpes, hepatitis, even Ebola.
<a href="https://sph.unc.edu/adv_profile/timothy-sheahan-phd/">Timothy Sheahan</a>, a virologist with the department of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Public Health, had been working on applying remdesivir, which was originally developed to treat Ebola, to coronavirus infections since 2015 and on molnupiravir, which initially targeted influenza, since 2017.
“We never really thought that the stuff we were doing in the lab would lead to the approval of two antiviral drugs by the FDA,” he said. Till the advent of Covid-19, “nobody cared about coronaviruses, or even knew what they were.”
That early foundational research, however, meant that these drugs could come to market as quickly as they did. “Many other antiviral drug candidates didn’t have that body of information just sitting on the shelves,” Sheahan said.
Despite the years of research, molnupiravir (from Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics) and Paxlovid (a combo of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir, which Pfizer started developing at the beginning of the pandemic) still needed to go through clinical trials and testing in the Covid-19 landscape. And then companies needed to start making them. When the <a href="https://www.fda.gov/media/155053/download">emergency</a> <a href="https://www.fda.gov/media/155049/download">authorizations</a> came through for their use in late December, although the federal government had placed orders for <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2021/11/18/biden-administration-secures-10-million-courses-pfizers-covid-19-oral-antiviral-medicine-as-additional-tool-reduce-hospitalizations-save-lives.html">millions</a> of courses of the drugs, there were just 300,000 courses of molnupiravir and <a href="https://www.phe.gov/emergency/events/COVID19/investigation-MCM/Paxlovid/Pages/default.aspx">65,000 of Paxlovid</a> to go around, just as the omicron variant was poised to sicken tens of millions across the country.
In addition to the initially limited supply, these drugs also have inherent shortcomings. In trials, molnupiravir was only about <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2116044">30 percent more successful</a> than a placebo in keeping infected study participants from being hospitalized or dying. (Subjects were unvaccinated adults with at least one risk factor for severe Covid-19, and experts expect the drugs to perform better among vaccinated people.) It is also not recommended for <a href="https://www.fda.gov/media/155101/download">people who are pregnant</a> or might become pregnant in the near future.
Paxlovid, for its part, appears to be much more powerful. It is <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2713">about 89 percent</a> effective in preventing hospitalization or death when high-risk participants took it within three days of having symptoms, according to a report published in the BMJ. But Paxlovid comes with a long laundry list of <a href="https://www.fda.gov/media/155050/download">interactions with common drugs</a>, making it unusable for many of the high-risk people it could otherwise help, such as those on some heart or cancer medications.
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
<aside><q>A potential new era of renewed investment in antivirals that could fight not just Covid-19, but also other deadly viruses that have yet to emerge</q></aside>
</div>
As the federal government distributed the limited supply of these medications across the nation earlier this year, many also <a href="https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2022-02-01/equity-becomes-an-issue-with-covid-19-medications">worried</a> that more vulnerable populations, such as high-risk individuals in under-served communities, would <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2022/01/19/pharmacies-shouldnt-be-only-place-to-get-paxlovid/">lack equal access</a> to the lifesaving drugs. A fraction of the courses — about 15 percent — was distributed to federally funded health centers that serve these groups. That left the bulk of the first shipments to be distributed through private pharmacies, to be doled out to those who were able to access them first, a sort of non-system that by default favors the well-resourced.
Even for those who have not had to try to avail themselves of these new drugs, they have already had another side effect: pandemic stress reduction. For those who, due to previous illnesses, age, a compromised immune system, or other factors, are less protected by vaccination, these pills offer an added level of security.
“It is reassuring,” said <a href="https://www.mayo.edu/research/faculty/razonable-raymund-r-m-d/bio-00086600">Raymund Razonable</a>, vice chair of infectious diseases at the Mayo Clinic. The clinic is still collecting data, but anecdotally, among the high-risk patients he and his colleagues have prescribed these new drugs to so far, they’ve tended to have a good outcome: silence. “They’re not going to call you again,” he said, “because they’re better.”
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On a population level, dramatically reducing the number of people who get sick enough to need hospitalization could help preserve the entire health care system during future waves of the virus. This would keep <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/22849829/covid-omicron-variant-cases-surge-us-hospitals">hospitals from being overwhelmed</a>, preserving care for more people, including those who have health needs other than Covid-19.
Whether these drugs will be deployed more widely, directly to people at lower risk, remains to be seen.
If future Covid-19 variants cause relatively “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/07/health/mild-covid-19-symptoms-wellness/index.html">mild</a>” breakthrough infections, like omicron has, antiviral drugs might not become standard for everyone who tests positive. A rougher illness outlook could send more people looking for prescriptions. Yet, because the new antivirals were studied in high-risk, unvaccinated individuals, we don’t know much about how effective they will be at improving symptoms for people who are at low risk for severe disease.
If they can help someone at low risk feel much better, much faster, however, “I would take the drug,” said <a href="https://publichealth.berkeley.edu/people/john-swartzberg/">John Swartzberg</a>, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health.
There’s a chance these sorts of easy-to-take antivirals could play another important role in the pandemic: keeping more people from getting sick in the first place.
Yet it’s still unclear whether the new oral antiviral drugs would make sense as a prophylactic for the more general low-risk population, experts told Vox. And it is unlikely to be prescribed as an ongoing regime, as <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/prep/index.html">PrEP is to prevent HIV</a>.
“HIV PrEP is very effective, but you have to remember to take a pill every day, and it has some side effects,” Wurtz said. “So the ideal prophylactic medication would be something that would be long-acting, inexpensive, highly effective, and non-toxic. None of the options that we have available to use meet those criteria yet.”
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<figcaption>Bottles of Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics’s antiviral medication molnupiravir, which received emergency authorization from the FDA in late 2021. The antivirals represent a new way to beat back Covid-19 in the most at-risk patients — and to manage the virus’s uncertain future.</figcaption>
<cite>Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg via Getty Images</cite></figure>
It’s also possible that these sorts of medications will decrease the odds that a patient will spread the infection to others, making it “so they’re not just another node in transmission,” Wurtz said.
Wurtz finds this a compelling line of questioning as we look at these drugs’ effect on the future of the pandemic. “We hope and expect that if someone is diagnosed with Covid, and we quickly put them on these antivirals, they’ll be less contagious to other people,” she said. She sees that as an important benefit, particularly for nursing homes and other places with lower community immunity to the virus.
Vaccines, experts say, remain the first and best line of defense. “The vaccine is the best tool because it clearly prevents severe illness, hospitalization, and death,” said <a href="https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-people/adalja/">Amesh Adalja</a>, an infectious disease, emergency medicine, and critical care doctor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Prevention is always better than treatment.”
For those who haven’t mounted as high of an immune response, even after vaccination, or haven’t been able or have chosen not to be vaccinated, the pills could someday be prescribed after a known exposure, even before a positive diagnosis.
The antiviral Tamiflu is already prescribed this way to prevent those at high risk from catching a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html">potentially fatal case of influenza</a>. For example, if an outbreak of flu occurs in an assisted living facility, often everyone is given a course of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32538036/">Tamiflu to prevent additional infections</a>. For Covid-19, monoclonal antibodies have been authorized for this sort of <a href="https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-authorizes-regen-cov-monoclonal-antibody-therapy-post-exposure-prophylaxis-prevention-covid-19">post-exposure prevention</a> in high-risk people since July 2021.
Having courses of oral antivirals on hand for US nursing homes could potentially save thousands of lives during future Covid-19 waves. But the rest of the globe could see an even more dramatic benefit as we look ahead to many more years of living with the virus.
Easy-to-take antivirals could drastically reduce hospitalization and death among the billions of people who remain vulnerable to the disease, including those who have been unable to be vaccinated and those living with conditions that put them at higher risk, such as HIV.
“If we could get the drugs to them, we could prevent an awful lot of hospitalizations and deaths just with the oral medication,” Swartzberg noted. “But it’s a real steep climb to work out all the logistics.” The pills would need, for example, to be substantially cheaper than they are currently in the US: $530 for a course of Paxlovid and $700 for molnupiravir (costs that the US government is currently covering for its residents).
The drugs would still need to surmount many of the same distribution hurdles as other lifesaving medications that frequently <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2015.0375">fail to become universally accessible</a>.
<hr class="p-entry-hr" />
Whenever we deploy a new weapon against a virus on a broad scale, on the faces of the very scientists and medical workers we would expect to be most jubilant, there might pass a barely perceptible shadow of worry. The specter of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5499642/">resistance</a> always looms.
Similar to bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotic treatments, such as in <a href="https://nyulangone.org/conditions/antibiotic-resistant-infections/types">dreaded MRSA infections</a>, viruses can rapidly evolve to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5499642/">shrug off once-deadly attacks</a> by antiviral medications. In some ways, they’re even better at it. “They’re far less sophisticated than bacteria, therefore they need even less to carry on and survive,” Wurtz explained. “They’re literally just packages of patterns; they’re not even really alive. So they can test and cope with mutations, including mutations that make them resistant to antivirals.”
The Covid-19 virus replicates so quickly in a single person — and across so many people — it has almost countless chances to try out new mutations that will make it better at infecting people, evading vaccines, and surviving attempts to quash it with treatments. “So resistance is inevitable,” Wurtz said.
We’ve already seen the genetic gymnastics Covid-19 has performed to frequently get around vaccine-induced immunity (if with greatly reduced severity). The virus has done this by changing aspects of its external spike protein, which is what the vaccines had primed our immune systems to look out for. Fortunately, the new antiviral drugs work on a more intimate and integral part of the virus, its replication machinery, that it is more hard-pressed to alter.
Still, cautioned Mayo Clinic’s Razonable, “We’ve learned from before that there is always going to be some sort of fight between the virus and whatever drugs we have. So there’s always going to be the anticipation of resistance coming.” Some past strains of the flu, for example, have proven <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/antivirals/antiviral-drug-resistance.htm">resistant to Tamiflu</a> treatment.
One way to try to stave off resistance is to help people take the medication exactly as instructed. (The new antiviral courses require multiple pills to be taken twice a day for five consecutive days.)
The other essential tactic we have for combating resistance is to be ready with new and different pharmaceutical weapons. “If we know resistance is going to come, we should get ourselves ready and develop some other drugs, with different mechanisms of action, so that when the time comes, we’ll be ready,” Razonable said.
The lineup of potential new drugs to help prevent more Covid-19 deaths, experts say, is fair. But it could be better. Before 2020, much of the recent research had been in highly targeted antivirals that were less likely to work on a new virus.
The pandemic renewed interest in broad-spectrum antivirals of the sort Sheahan has worked on, which could be effective against a wide swath of viruses, including new mutations of the coronavirus and as-yet-unknown viruses. (They worked on assessing remdesivir and molnupiravir for such a broad band of coronaviruses by testing them not just against ones that had infected humans, such as SARS and MERS, but also on those circulating in a range of animals, such as mice, bats, and pigs, which could sow future pandemics.) As Sheahan noted, “it’s a process that takes time.”
<hr class="p-entry-hr" />
For now, for the two oral antivirals to wield the greatest force in reshaping the hospitalization and death curves of the pandemic, people who can benefit from them most must get them — and quickly. That hasn’t been easy so far.
Both molnupiravir and Paxlovid need to be taken within five days of first symptoms. Why? “When you think about disease caused by Covid-19 and the severity, it’s an interaction of two things: the virus and your immune system,” Adalja explained. “Right after about five days or so, the virus is probably less of a player, and it’s your immune reaction to the virus,” he said. “If you let the virus rip for five days in someone, they may already be at the cusp of being hospitalized anyways. So the faster, the better.”
It’s easy to see how that process wouldn’t always go so smoothly. Testing is one weak link in the chain.
Swartzberg described a scenario where someone develops symptoms but first needs to acquire a rapid test. Once they do, if their first test is negative, they might wait a couple of days and test again. If their test is negative again but they still think they might be infected, they might seek out an appointment for a PCR test — and then have to wait 48 hours for results. “You can see where it’s beyond five days right there,” he said. And the person in this scenario hadn’t even gotten as far as contacting their doctor or nurse, let alone having their prescription in hand to start trying to track down the pills.
Adalja noted that the prescribing process itself will need to be quick and low-friction. “Doctors have to be comfortable saying a home test is a threshold to prescribe,” he said, and not insisting on confirmation from an official PCR test.
New York City’s home-delivery program addressed another logistical issue, which is simply getting the medication to Covid-infected people, whom no one wants turning up in the local pharmacy line in person.
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
<aside><q>“There is always going to be some sort of fight between the virus and whatever drugs we have. There’s always going to be the anticipation of resistance coming.”</q></aside>
</div>
And there’s been a telling surprise: In early February, there was actually <a href="https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/02/eagerly-awaited-covid-lifesavers-molnupiravir-paxlovid-now-wait-patients">an oversupply of these potentially lifesaving medications</a> at some US pharmacies. This suggests that the <a href="https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-03-years-pandemic-unequal-access-covid-.html">many</a> <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/03/08/1085078893/test-to-treat-gets-covid-pills-to-at-risk-patients-fast-but-its-reach-is-limited">hurdles</a> in obtaining these drugs, as well as their not-insignificant limitations, mean we’re not yet ready to extinguish the pandemic’s deadly blaze with billions of blister packs and some water.
Once these challenges are addressed, though, could these types of drugs meaningfully change the future of the pandemic for all of us?
“Cases are going to ebb and flow every year,” Adalja said. “As this transitions to endemic, there will likely be a role for this drug in keeping people out of the hospital.”
Yet, as much as these sorts of oral antivirals might mercifully lop off the spikes of hospitalization and death we have seen in the pandemic so far, they will not end it. “Oral antivirals will always have a role in people who are elderly and immunocompromised, but not as a pandemic-stopper,” Wurtz said. “Vaccination is the pandemic-stopper.”
Katherine Harmon Courage is a science writer and frequent contributor to Vox.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22968986/covid-drugs-paxlovid-molnupiravir-health">https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22968986/covid-drugs-paxlovid-molnupiravir-health</a>

vox It’s not too late for new Covid-19 drugs to change the pandemic

Part of the Drugs Issue of The Highlight , our home for ambitious stories that explain our world. In January, New York City launched...

Season 2 of Bridgerton is better for everyone — except fans of the book

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Bridgerton is back, with all the pomp and dazzlement of a <a href="https://www.regencyhistory.net/2015/01/a-genuine-almacks-voucher.html">quadrille at Almack’s</a>. But while the show’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22970932/georgette-heyer-novels-movies-adaptations-folio-venetia">Regency romance pedigree</a> is still on full display, just as it was throughout its <a href="https://www.vox.com/22194033/bridgerton-netflix-rape-scene-novel">controversial</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/22178125/bridgerton-netflix-review-regency-romance">first season</a>, the tone of this season is much more restrained, far from the heady, hypersexual chaos that nearly overwhelmed the show’s debutante season.
Instead, Bridgerton season two has gone in the opposite direction. The result is a season that will likely delight returning and new Bridgerton viewers, but may disappoint fans of the source material.
Season two turns away from the torrid passions detailed in the original Bridgerton romance series by author Julia Quinn, and flings itself into the arms of the slow-burn, <a href="https://fanlore.org/wiki/Unresolved_Sexual_Tension">UST</a>-filled, well-trodden Jane Austen cinematic milieu. For the first half of the season’s eight episodes, out on Netflix on March 25, this chaste change-up signifies mainly good things: richer, more interesting character development, more time with our ensemble Bridgertons, and plenty of opportunity for our main couple — eldest son Anthony Bridgerton (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0047332/">Jonathan Bailey</a>) and his fiery nemesis Kate Sharma (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7592760/">Simone Ashley</a>) — to indulge in all the smoldering longing any romance fan could want.
There’s truly a lot to enjoy about this season, which is every bit as opulent and beautiful to look at as its predecessor. Our main characters exchange lots of sultry touches. The characters you loved from the first season get more lovable — and so do characters you hated. The Bridgertons get to spend more time together as a family, which is always the best thing the show has going for it. Eloise discovers proto-feminism! Pen’s dresses get marginally less citrus-colored! Lady Danbury gets in a few good cane taps! There’s lots of good stuff happening in season two, and thankfully the plot will cause far less controversy than last season’s.
Eventually, however, despite the best efforts of a strong ensemble cast, the season begins to lag considerably, both in pacing and ingenuity, as its plot, much like the first season, gets weirder and more unwieldy. Despite beginning with a host of interesting concepts, a huge budget (season one reportedly clocked in at <a href="https://screenrant.com/most-expensive-netflix-original-series-how-much-they-cost/">$7 million per episode</a>), and an utterly talented ensemble to venture forth with, season two winds up spinning its wheels in its final few episodes.
The point at which Bridgerton starts to wobble is also the point at which it departs drastically from the novel it’s based on. That devolution has infuriated die-hard fans of the Bridgerton novels — because Kate and Anthony aren’t just a Bridgerton couple; to many fans, they are the Bridgerton couple. Their book, The Viscount Who Loved Me, is generally considered to be the best and most beloved book in Quinn’s series, which devotes a book each to all eight Bridgerton children. And while there’s one big reason some kind of major plot change had to happen, the execution of season two has left “Kathony” shippers wildly divided over the results.
I won’t spoil the plot too greatly, but if you’re longing to know what works and doesn’t work about season two, then gather your petticoats and polish your Hessians, because Bridgerton season two has more twists than Beau Brummell’s cravat.
The biggest change to the second Bridgerton novel is, of course, the introduction of multiple characters of color. This includes swapping Kate’s origin story. Where before she was your standard white girl from the shire, now, along with her half-sister Edwina (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm12302860/">Charithra Chandran</a>) and her stepmother Mary (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0174909">Shelley Conn</a>), she hails from India. Bridgerton’s raceblind-ish casting approach continues to <a href="https://twitter.com/ProfSunnySingh/status/1502212979663720448">draw criticism</a> for lacking depth and historical accuracy, <a href="https://www.vox.com/22215076/bridgerton-race-racism-historical-accuracy-alternate-history">just as it did during season one</a>, and Kate’s Indian culture barely intrudes upon the story except to provide fodder for her status as an Unconventional Heroine™. (She rides horses and hunts, because something something India.)
When Kate arrives in London in pursuit of an eligible suitor for her sister, she doesn’t have to wait long: Anthony, a capital “R” Rake who takes his duties as the eldest Bridgerton extremely seriously, has arbitrarily decided now is the time for him to marry. He sets his sights on Edwina because she’s won the queen’s favor. The problem: he’s already met and started to fall for Kate, who in turn overhears him discussing his plans to marry for expedience rather than love and instantly decides she hates him — if hating means flirt-fighting and eye-fucking at every opportunity.
Unlike season one, however, which had plenty of onscreen steam, season two spends most of its time restraining its lovers from doing more than hungrily touching in private. The show, for all its sexual unrestraint in season one, buttons itself up tightly for the second round; it even comes perilously close to suggesting that sex before marriage is a death sentence. It might sound like it’s a general descriptor, because of all its puritan handwringing, to call this season of Bridgerton Austenian, but in fact, it’s rather specific. The show, after a point, borrows many of its romantic beats directly from Austen cinematic adaptations — everything from Darcy’s infamous <a href="https://janeausten.fandom.com/wiki/The_Lake_Scene">wet shirt moment</a> to the other Darcy’s infamous <a href="https://www.insider.com/hand-flex-pride-and-prejudice-meme-tiktoks-interview-editor-2020-11">hand-flex</a> to headstrong, impetuous maidens <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owwjyxoIzCU">muddying their petticoats</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK8w1j1Siv4">venturing out in the rain</a> and meeting with dire misfortune.
Spread out over eight Netflix episodes, all this Austen riffing becomes a tell for the flagging creativity of the Bridgerton writers’ room. These are incredibly well-worn Regency tropes, and there’s room for so much more imaginative uses of this time period and these juicy characters — one might just <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22970932/georgette-heyer-novels-movies-adaptations-folio-venetia">steal plot ideas directly from Georgette Heyer</a>, for example.
You’ll notice I’m not suggesting the writers simply faithfully adapt Quinn’s book. That’s because The Viscount Who Loves Me contains a wrinkle that romance readers easily accept but which would absolutely baffle Netflix viewers: Its main plot is essentially the same as that of the first book. If you’ll recall, the first season sees Anthony catching his sister Daphne and her dishy duke Simon alone in a compromising position, after which the two wed. Although they’re in love, Simon’s wish to never father children creates a huge conflict for them following their wedding, which the series spends the second half of season one trying to unravel.
In The Viscount Who Loves Me, the exact same thing happens to Anthony and Kate: Before Anthony’s attempt to woo a disinterested Edwina is far underway, he and Kate get caught in a rather extraordinary compromising position involving a bee sting. (It’s actually super angsty, albeit ridiculous.) They immediately get engaged and marry, then spend the rest of the book ironing out their deeper conflicts, misunderstandings, and insecurity.
While romance readers are used to seeing this “caught in a compromising position” trope happen over and over again in novels — it even repeats as a tossed-off side plot in season two — it’s easy to see Netflix viewers questioning a season two that does exactly the same thing as season one, just with different characters. So it makes complete sense that after the pivotal “bee sting” scene, Bridgerton departs from the book in a major way: Anthony proceeds with his courtship and eventual engagement to Edwina, all the while trying to resist his attraction to Kate. The stakes for Edwina to pull off a great marriage are much higher in this adaptation, so there’s theoretically more pressure on Kate to resist her own attraction to Anthony. It should all make for a delightful confection of sexual tension.
But after this plot divergence, Bridgerton’s second season suffers from a weird dual problem of compression and emptiness. Around the main plotline, the season works in plenty of plot points taken from later Bridgerton novels. It’s a clear attempt to consolidate the series’ eight novels into a much more condensed timeline. That approach seems preferable, given that the Bridgertons are always more entertaining as a unit than broken up into individuals.
Still, this compression means more distractions from the main plot. It means that Kate and Anthony should sizzle that much more whenever they’re onscreen together. But they... don’t. Despite Simone Ashley and Jonathan Bailey’s best efforts (and they’re both fantastic!), their moments of intimacy feel obligatory rather than impulsive, as if the writers tossed in physical touches whenever they got bored of trying to develop their relationship. The irresistible chemistry Kate and Anthony are meant to possess just isn’t quite there.
The considerable age difference between Edwina and Anthony — he’s about 13 or 14 years older — never causes explicit concern, but it looms uncomfortably over the show’s back half, as Edwina gradually starts to care for Anthony, remaining ignorant of her sister’s feelings right up until everything implodes. Meanwhile, everyone in their lives urges Kate and Anthony to just act on their feelings and get married, already, and this “follow your heart!” monologue passes from character to character until it becomes monotonous. Despite upping the stakes on Edwina’s marriage, giving the Sharmas a more interesting cross-cultural background, and giving Kate an intriguing conflict over her dual role as surrogate parental figure and stepdaughter — the Kate/Anthony/Edwina storyline ultimately feels more like filler than the side storylines it’s competing with. The season’s production was also <a href="https://variety.com/2021/tv/global/bridgerton-season-2-production-resumes-covid-19-1235032133/">halted twice due to Covid</a>; still, the delays fail to fully explain why, at just eight episodes, this season feels unnecessarily long.
Thankfully, there are plenty of other compelling reasons to keep watching — chief among them being the evolving storyline involving Eloise Bridgerton (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5104710/">Claudia Jessie</a>), her search for the mysterious scandal sheet writer Lady Whistledown, and her best friend Penelope “‘Pen’ is for ‘pen name’” Featherington (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1965552/">Nicola Coughlan</a>). Eloise and Pen, one fed up with society, the other longing to truly participate in it, deliver the show’s most intriguing conflict — and the most subtextually suggestive. Although all of the Bridgerton books feature heterosexual romances, including ones for Eloise, Pen, and the artistic Bridgerton brother, Benedict, these characters’ arcs in particular lend themselves to queer readings. Of course, the plot steering these characters toward heterosexual romances doesn’t preclude readings of them as bisexual or pansexual; but the text seems to actively resist such interpretations, nor has it really earned any of them, at least not yet.
Then again, that makes me excited for the show’s third season, and the potential further development of Eloise’s many awakenings, Pen’s growing self-confidence, and Benedict’s fledgling creative life. Around and in between the lackluster main romances, Bridgerton teems with liveliness, and fun, and a broader story about family, friendships, and self-discovery. That’s the Bridgerton that really came to life in season two, and ultimately that’s the version of Bridgerton that most viewers will enjoy. It may not be the version book fans were hoping for — but it’s the one that strikes closest to the show’s heart, and the one that keeps Bridgerton feeling fresh.
And if it can just learn to treat its romances with as much care and fondness as its friendships, who knows? Bridgerton might yet crystallize into a <a href="https://candicehern.com/regency-world/glossary/diamond-of-the-first-water/">diamond</a> of the first water.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22993372/bridgerton-season-two-review-spoilers">https://www.vox.com/culture/22993372/bridgerton-season-two-review-spoilers</a>

vox Season 2 of Bridgerton is better for everyone — except fans of the book

Bridgerton is back, with all the pomp and dazzlement of a quadrille at Almack’s . But while the show’s Regency romance pedigree is still ...

America’s inflation problem is weirdly hard to fix

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<a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2022/3/2/22956966/inflation-explained-by-eggs">Inflation</a>: Why? That’s the question many consumers have been finding themselves asking lately. Followed by inflation: Fix?
We’re in quite a conundrum when it comes to rising prices. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/03/10/1085448058/inflation-40-year-high-gas-prices-energy-russia-ukraine">Inflation is at a 40-year high</a> in the United States and <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/return-global-inflation">accelerating</a> around the globe. The situation may very well get worse before it gets better, as Russia’s war on Ukraine stands to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/war-in-ukraine-fans-the-flames-of-global-inflation-11646922368">exacerbate price pressures</a>, as does a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/14/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html">new round of lockdowns</a> in China due to Covid-19.
Among economists and experts, there’s no strict consensus about what exactly is to blame. There are certain factors widely agreed upon that we’ve been hearing about for months: supply chain woes, rising oil prices, shifting consumer demands. These concerns have hardly subsided. But there are other arenas where there’s more disagreement, such as the role government stimulus has played in increasing prices, and the possibility that <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/2/20/22943257/inflation-corporations-price-hikes-consumer-price-index">corporate greed</a> is an important factor.
There’s also no clear agreement on what the solution is. The Federal Reserve is starting to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/federal-reserve-interest-rate-hike-inflation-fight-tightening-monetary-policy-2022-3">make moves</a> to try to tamp down inflation, but it’s going to take time for that to have an impact. It’s still <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/powell-says-fed-will-consider-more-aggressive-interest-rate-increases-to-reduce-inflation-11647880218">uncertain</a> how aggressive the Fed will be or what risks those fixes could pose for the broader economy. The <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/24/1075264843/what-does-the-white-house-plan-to-do-to-combat-inflation">White House is trying</a> to combat price increases, but there’s not really a ton it can do.
“They’re actually doing the right thing, they just don’t have many tools,” said Jason Furman, a Harvard economist and former adviser to President Barack Obama. He said one thing they can do and are doing is to be “realistic in leveling with people” that of course they don’t like inflation, and this isn’t a problem that will solve itself overnight.
While a lot is unknown, one thing seems pretty clear to most: Much of this is the result of factors that have been brewing for quite some time; some back to the start of the pandemic, many even longer. As for when it will be over, we’re likely to be in this situation for a while.
“A lot of people early on in the pandemic were saying it’s just the pandemic, it’s temporary, it’s going to go away on its own,” said Lauren Melodia, deputy director of macroeconomic analysis at the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank. “At this point, we’ve seen it show up in other things, like housing, where it can’t just be the pandemic.”
<h3>The answer to the question of exactly why inflation is happening is kind of hard</h3>
Whichever economist or expert or policymaker you ask to explain the current inflation story to you is going to tell you something slightly different. I asked a bunch of economists over the past couple of weeks what was causing inflation and how to fix it. Most kind of laughed for a second before launching into their cases, acknowledging the full answer is, to a certain extent, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
So let’s start with the things most experts generally agree on. For starters, the past couple of years in the economy have been … <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22435400/economy-unemployment-inflation">weird</a>, due in large part to the pandemic. On the supply end, a bunch of industries saw <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/gm-cuts-production-two-plants-coronavirus-pandemic-squeezes-supply-chain-n1247742">slowdowns</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/26/business/meat-processing-plants-coronavirus/index.html">shutdowns</a> when Covid-19 hit, which made it <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/22/business/shortages-supply-chain.html">hard to produce and maintain business as usual</a>. The supply chain is global, as are commodities, so even if things were a-okay in the US (which they are not), what happens everywhere else makes a difference.
At the same time, what consumers want has shifted, moving spending from services (remember when restaurants and hair salons weren’t an option?) to spending on goods instead, which haven’t been so readily available (remember the huge runs on <a href="https://www.vox.com/22410713/lumber-prices-shortage">lumber</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/21396116/dumbbell-set-shortage-nordictrack-bowflex">dumbbells</a>?).
“There are shortages of physical goods people want,” said Damon Silvers, director of policy and special counsel for the AFL-CIO. On top of shortages of the goods themselves, it’s also proven tricky to move said goods around. <a href="https://ktla.com/news/local-news/los-angeles-county-neighborhoods-clogged-by-backups-at-ports/">Ports have been clogged</a>; trucks are <a href="https://www.vox.com/22841783/truck-drivers-shortage-supply-chain-pandemic">expensive and in short supply</a>. “After decades of underinvestment in infrastructure, our system for moving goods to market turned out to be very vulnerable,” Silvers said.
Skanda Amarnath, executive director of the advocacy group Employ America, explained that the pandemic exposed a lot of underinvestment that’s been happening in the country for a long time. It turns out if companies and government don’t invest in infrastructure to make business run smoothly but instead constantly try to cut costs and corners at every turn, that matters. “It all stems back, to me, that a lot of underinvestment has been exposed at a time when the economy is recovering,” he said.
That recovery part is important. As much as many people say that they <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2022/01/13/how-do-americans-feel-about-the-economy-not-very-hopeful-poll-finds/">feel bad about the economy right now</a>, the economy is actually pretty decent. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/04/jobs-report-february-2022.html">Unemployment is relatively low</a>, many people still have quite a bit of money to spend, and the recovery, in a lot of ways, looks pretty solid. But again, therein lies part of the problem: People have money to spend, but not so many places to spend it. “There are multiple things that are happening all at once right now. The pandemic is still going on, we still have supply chain bottlenecks around the globe, parts of the economy are getting up to speed,” Amarnath said.
Climbing oil prices, which translate to climbing gas prices, are also contributing to inflation. Even before the pandemic, energy and gas prices were on the rise, but now, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22949683/russia-ukraine-gas-prices-oil-inflation-stock-market">situation with Russia</a> stands to make things worse. Russia doesn’t have all the world’s oil, but it has enough of it to make a difference, in the US somewhat and more so in Europe. Moreover, Russia’s war on Ukraine and the <a href="https://www.vox.com/22968949/russia-sanctions-swift-economy-mcdonalds">resulting sanctions</a> are pushing up prices elsewhere on commodities, such as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/wheat-prices-soar-ukraine-fears-us-growers-cant-cash-2022-03-21/">wheat</a>.
“We already had pretty quickly increasing energy prices and commodity prices which now have, of course, exploded, so you get another round of intense cost pressures that affect a wide range of industries,” said Isabella Weber, an economist at UMass Amherst.
Covid-19 is also a continuing factor in inflation, which some people tend to forget. Even if you are living your life mask-free, it doesn’t mean other people are, not only in the US but, probably more importantly, abroad. China is very strict on Covid-19, and China is a very important part of the global supply chain. Covid is on the rise again there, so it’s going to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/17/moodys-chinas-zero-covid-policy-prolongs-supply-chain-disruptions-.html">screw up supply chains</a> and, in turn, contribute to inflation. “I’m rather worried,” Weber said of the entire situation.
<h3>Everybody is arguing about what else is causing inflation</h3>
I would like to be able to tell you a coherent story about inflation where everyone absolutely agrees with all certainty what is going on. But I cannot. So instead, I’m going to pop through some theories that some economists say are contributing and others say are not.
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<aside><q>“It doesn’t seem obvious that all the people who received the stimmy checks spent the stimmy checks on things that proved to be inflationary”</q></aside>
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Some experts argue that what’s fostering inflation is that the government put too much money into circulation. Basically, the argument goes, the federal government did three giant stimulus packages pumping trillions of dollars into the economy, and that’s driven prices up. A lot of these people point to the $1,400 stimulus checks that went out in early 2021.
Furman, the Harvard economist, thinks the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan signed into law in early 2021 helped create some of the inflation we’re seeing now. “I think by the time we did the American Rescue Plan, the economy was healing rapidly, households had more money in their bank accounts than they’d ever had before, and jobs were being added rapidly. I just think there was no need for anything on that scale,” he said.
Not everybody, or even a ton of people, agrees with this view, but it’s a view out there. Amarnath said he thinks it would “be wrong to dismiss all sources of demand-side support.” But it’s not the basket he’s placing all his eggs in. “It doesn’t seem obvious that all the people who received the stimmy checks spent the stimmy checks on things that proved to be inflationary.”
It does feel a little iffy to say that giving less-well-off people benefits that included a little over $1,000 tanked the economy, given all the support the government gives to corporations and rich people all the time.
Many progressive economists and politicians are beginning to argue that it’s corporate consolidation that’s <a href="https://inequality.org/research/not-inflation-price-gouging/">making inflation worse</a>. They say that companies have a ton of power (they do) and can set prices at whatever they like because there’s not a lot of competition (<a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/26/18112651/monopoly-open-markets-institute-report-concentration">there often isn’t</a>). They then say that companies are boosting inflation higher by using the problem as an excuse to increase prices so they can make more profits. Matt Stoller, director of research at anti-monopoly think tank the American Economic Liberties Project, <a href="https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/corporate-profits-drive-60-of-inflation?s=r">argued</a> in December that the pandemic rise in corporate profits accounts for nearly two-thirds of US inflation increases.
“At the end of the day, yeah, corporations do have the power to change prices,” Melodia said.
The point of companies is to make money, so of course that’s what they’re doing right now, even with inflation. “Saying it’s corporate greed implies that we are surprised corporations are greedy, but that’s like complaining that tigers are hungry. The question is what to do about it in terms of antitrust and tax policy,” Silvers said.
At the same time, is consolidation the main thing behind inflation? There’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/02/17/white-house-inflation-corporations/">reportedly</a> some disagreement even within the White House about whether this is a useful argument. Many of the people placing blame on corporate profiteering acknowledge it’s just a part of what’s going on, not the whole story. Some economists <a href="https://apricitas.substack.com/p/are-rising-corporate-profit-margins">dismiss it altogether</a>.
The whole debate is like this: Some economists say rising wages are contributing to inflation, and others present <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/profits-wages-and-inflation-whats-really-going-on/">evidence</a> it’s absolutely not the case. Expectations play a role here — when everybody thinks inflation is happening, then businesses start charging more and workers start charging more money to compensate, which makes the whole thing worse.
“Once you have inflation, there’s some self-perpetuation of it,” Furman said. “There’s some passthrough of wages to prices, and some passthrough of prices to wages. Inflation expectations matter.”
<h3>If you know exactly how to fix inflation, call me (and by “me,” I mean “Jay Powell”)</h3>
There are no easy answers as to how to address rising inflation or quick fixes that will make this entire episode come to an end.
On a domestic level, the Fed, headed by Jay Powell, has started to raise interest rates. That should do something. The idea is that when the Fed raises rates it makes it more <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/15/why-the-fed-raises-interest-rates-to-combat-inflation.html">expensive to borrow money</a>, which means less spending and less demand. But there’s concern that doing so could push the US economy toward a recession, like what happened <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/1970s-great-inflation.asp">after inflation in the 1970s</a>, or that at the very least that it will cost some workers some jobs. Powell has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/fed-must-move-expeditiously-if-needed-more-aggressively-powell-says-2022-03-21/">indicated</a> he’s willing to be aggressive about interest rate hikes to combat inflation if need be.
“I think that raising rates, at this point, is more about trying to get lucky,” Furman said. “Maybe it resets inflation expectations and so the self-fulfilling wage-price passthrough goes away. That’s the cheapest and easiest way to bring down inflation, to bring expectations down.”
Brad DeLong, an economist at UC Berkeley, has a modestly more relaxed view on inflation. “My answer is calm down, it’s by and large a desirable part of adjustments. We look out at what people are expecting in the future, and in five to 10 years from now, people are expecting inflation to quiet down. The Fed will do its job,” he said.
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<aside><q>“I think that raising rates, at this point, is more about trying to get lucky”</q></aside>
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Some inflation problems might be out of the Fed’s reach, even domestically. Rent prices, which go into the services bucket, are about to cause more inflation going forward. If you think that part of the problem in that arena is that there’s too little housing, and rising interest rates could make building housing more expensive (because it will be more expensive to borrow), that doesn’t solve the problem. Which is what makes this whole thing complicated.
The White House and President Joe Biden have also taken some measures to try to address inflation, but what they can do is pretty limited (despite some Republicans trying to insist that this is largely Biden’s fault). They’ve rolled out a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/08/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-supply-chain-disruptions-task-force-to-address-short-term-supply-chain-discontinuities/">supply chain task force</a> and made efforts to address issues such as <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/10/13/fact-sheet-biden-administration-efforts-to-address-bottlenecks-at-ports-of-los-angeles-and-long-beach-moving-goods-from-ship-to-shelf/">bottlenecks at ports</a> and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/01/21/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-bringing-semiconductor-manufacturing-back-to-america-2/">semiconductor shortages</a>. But it’s not like President Biden has a “stop inflation” button on his desk — which, if he did have one, he would definitely use.
“The White House has been very engaged with the problem of bottlenecks using the ordinary powers of government, but it takes time,” Silvers said. “The administration is addressing longstanding problems in our infrastructure and our manufacturing base that were allowed by prior administrations to go on for years and, in some cases, decades.”
“The advantage of the pandemic is it has thrown our economy into disarray to the extent that people are asking big questions about how do we come up with long-term solutions. The downside is that there’s no quick fix,” Melodia said.
If inflation really persists, the federal government could look into raising taxes or cutting spending, but some of that wouldn’t just entail the White House; you’d also need Congress.
Much of what’s causing inflation is also beyond the United States’s borders. Oil is a global commodity, and Russia’s war on Ukraine has pushed oil prices up even more than they were before. There’s very little the US can do about China’s zero-Covid policy, and even if <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/20/world/asia/china-zero-covid.html">China tweaks it</a>, the virus there and elsewhere will create supply chain disruptions again.
We’d already seen the effect of supply chain issues and the pressure of commodity and energy prices prior to the war, Weber explained, but it has become worse in recent weeks. She noted that international cooperation would likely be needed to try to stabilize some commodity markets.
“It seemed like an expectable type of outcome from the war and the sanctions that you would get very major turmoil in the commodity markets,” Weber said. “Given how sectoral this inflation is, I think we need more policy action that is targeted to specific sectors.”
Again, different ideas for fixing inflation depend on what you think is causing it. For those in the camp that government stimulus and an overly accommodative Fed are part of the problem, that means that in the future, they’ll push for less stimulus and a less lenient Fed. For those in the corporate power camp, solutions look like better antitrust enforcement, taxes on corporate profits, or maybe even price controls. There are plenty of ideas out there about strategies to address issues in <a href="https://www.employamerica.org/researchreports/spr-esf-dpa/">oil supply</a> and to combat some <a href="https://www.employamerica.org/researchreports/inflation-and-healthcare/">inflationary pressures through health care policies</a>, among others.
More broadly, some of the fixes for inflation are just going to take some time. Production capacity will get moving again, demand will cool off, maybe some necessary investments will be made.
It would be nice if there were one neat trick to solve inflation. There is not. The good news is, things will probably get better eventually. They just might get worse — and in turn cause a lot of pain — first.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22994731/inflation-rate-russia-gas-prices-jerome-powell">https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22994731/inflation-rate-russia-gas-prices-jerome-powell</a>

vox America’s inflation problem is weirdly hard to fix

Inflation : Why? That’s the question many consumers have been finding themselves asking lately. Followed by inflation: Fix? We’re in quite...

Two actors — and one major corporation — that broke boundaries at the 2022 Oscars

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Every Oscar ceremony carries with it its share of firsts. Sometimes, those firsts are in categories lots and lots of people pay attention to, as when Halle Berry became <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/7/3/15887198/halle-berry-oscars-win-meaningless">the first Black woman to win Best Actress</a> 20 years ago. More often, those firsts happen in categories where too much ground remains to be broken. (Did you know a woman still hasn’t won Best Cinematography, and only two women have ever been nominated for that award?)
Yet viewers are also increasingly aware of how many opportunities just aren’t available to the various performers and craftspeople who have the potential to make history. And even when we take the idea of breaking new ground for diversity out of the equation, we’re still left with lots of questions about who wins awards in an industry that is rapidly changing. As watching movies at home via streaming services becomes more and more central to how many of us consume film, the Oscars have been reluctant to embrace that change, even as more and more streaming films are nominated for major awards.
That in mind, here are three firsts marked by the 2022 Oscars, two of which are thanks to people who broke down long-standing barriers within the Academy, and one, thanks to shifting business models that the Oscars finally, begrudgingly acknowledged.
<h3>Ariana DeBose becomes the first openly queer woman of color to win an acting Oscar</h3>
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Ariana DeBose’s electrifying turn as Anita in West Side Story has won her a BAFTA, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and now an Oscar. Before West Side Story, she was a Tony nominee for Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, a member of the original Hamilton ensemble, and a contestant on So You Think You Can Dance. (She was quickly eliminated. Injustice!)
DeBose is also openly queer and has talked at length about making it as a queer woman in the entertainment industry, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/podcasts/story/2022-03-07/the-times-podcast-ariana-debose">especially in the build-up to her Oscar win</a>. She is also in a relationship with another woman. That makes her the first queer woman to win an acting Oscar while being open about her queer identity.
Figuring out the nature of DeBose’s historic first is hazy, simply because queerness is not something to be closely policed. But to my mind, the openness matters. Other queer women have won acting Oscars — Jodie Foster has won Best Actress twice, for instance — but they were not publicly out as queer at the time they won. What’s more, DeBose, who has Puerto Rican, African American, and Italian ancestry, was the first openly queer woman of color to ever be nominated for an acting Oscar, much less win.
And DeBose nodded to all of that in her acceptance speech, pointing out her existence as an openly queer, Afro-Latina woman holding an Oscar and hoping that doing so would give hope to others like her who might not see a path forward just yet. “To anybody who has ever questioned your identity or you find yourself living in the gray spaces, I promise you this — there is indeed a place for us,” she said.
<h3>Troy Kotsur is the first deaf man to win an acting Oscar</h3>
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Troy Kotsur’s work as Frank, a deaf father trying to keep his business afloat while also supporting his hearing teenage daughter’s dreams of being a musician, proved a highlight of <a href="https://www.vox.com/22617235/coda-review-deaf-captions">Best Picture winner CODA</a>. It was the culmination of a long stage career, including several productions with Los Angeles’s Deaf West Theatre, where I have seen him multiple times. (He’s a tremendous stage actor.) CODA didn’t just let him break through to a wider audience, however. It also won him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Kotsur is the first deaf man to win an acting Oscar and only the second deaf person to win, after his CODA co-star Marlee Matlin, who won Best Actress for her work in 1986’s Children of a Lesser God. Actors in the disabled community are too rarely allowed to play disabled characters, as those parts often go to able-bodied actors who are hoping to win an Oscar. And, indeed, the producers of CODA struggled to find funding for their film when they insisted on only casting deaf actors as deaf characters.
Seeing CODA now, it’s impossible to imagine anybody but Kotsur in the role of Frank, because he brings such warmth and beauty to the part. I am not the world’s biggest CODA fan, but when Kotsur started winning awards for his work, even I said, “Well, of course.” He’s tremendous in the film.
Kotsur’s speech was an emotional highlight of Oscar night, culminating in a tribute to his father. “My dad, he was the best signer in our family, but he was in a car accident and he became paralyzed from the neck down and he no longer was able to sign,” Kotsur said. “Dad, I learned so much from you. I’ll always love you. You are my hero.”
<h3>CODA is the first movie from a streaming service and the first movie to debut at Sundance to win Best Picture</h3>
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The Sundance favorite has been a staple of the Oscars for years and years now. From Little Miss Sunshine to Beasts of the Southern Wild and from Precious to Winter’s Bone, lots of movies that have been nominated for and even won major Oscars have debuted at the January film festival that celebrates independent film. But none of those films have won Best Picture, despite the fact that Sundance has been going since 1984.
Similarly, streaming movies have made a huge dent in the Oscar race in the last handful of years, with Netflix contenders Roma (2018) and The Irishman (2019) standing as major contenders at the Oscars. But a movie released by a streaming service hasn’t won an Oscar for Best Picture just yet. (I am sure some will quibble that Searchlight’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/22403141/nomadland-best-picture-oscars">2020 Best Picture winner Nomadland</a> technically also debuted on streaming alongside a theatrical release, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but Searchlight is not a streaming company.)
Yet here’s CODA, <a href="https://www.vox.com/22999406/coda-oscars-best-picture-sundance">this year’s big winner</a> that is somehow both the first movie to win Best Picture after a Sundance debut and the first movie backed by a streaming company (Apple TV+) to win Best Picture.
One could quibble with the fact that CODA is a festival acquisition, and it was not specifically made by Apple in the way that, say, Netflix directly provided a substantial degree of funding to get fellow nominee The Power of the Dog made. It’s also a little rich how CODA — which, granted, is an independently produced Sundance movie — has been turned into a scrappy underdog against Netflix’s behemoth when its Oscar campaign was underwritten by Apple, the biggest corporation in the world.
But none of that matters. Netflix and Prime Video have both taken shots at winning Best Picture and come up short. Apple beat them to the punch — and with a movie that had to hang around all year since the 2021 Sundance festival, no less. CODA is a rather unassuming movie to make this much history, but it did make that much history.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/3/28/22999362/oscars-2022-history-firsts-trivia-ariana-debose-troy-kotsur-coda-apple-tv-plus">https://www.vox.com/2022/3/28/22999362/oscars-2022-history-firsts-trivia-ariana-debose-troy-kotsur-coda-apple-tv-plus</a>

vox Two actors — and one major corporation — that broke boundaries at the 2022 Oscars

Every Oscar ceremony carries with it its share of firsts. Sometimes, those firsts are in categories lots and lots of people pay attention t...