On Balance | Why shifts in vaccine, infrastructure support suggest US Republicans are not beyond hope

The US$1 trillion infrastructure package now appears within reach since Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell signalled support for the plan

With an infrastructure deal looming and people in Republican strongholds rejecting vaccine misinformation, the party might not be as damaged as we thought

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A sign outside a supermarket in Indian Valley, California, thanks customers for wearing a mask, on July 27. People vaccinated against Covid-19 in high-risk parts of the US should resume wearing masks indoors, America’s top health authority said, a major shift in coronavirus guidance that underscores the country’s struggle to suppress the Delta variant. Photo: AFP

Published: 4:00am, 3 Aug 2021Updated: 4:42am, 3 Aug 2021

News from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week that people vaccinated for Covid-19 can spread the illness presented America’s hardcore anti-vaccination crowd with another dilemma.

The finding should silence the millions who have taken potshots at those including CDC director Dr Rochelle Walensky and the National Institutes of Health’s Dr Anthony Fauci, who have spent a harrowing year and a half dealing with a public health crisis that is always a step ahead of efforts to subdue it.

The only way back to the path of pandemic control the United States was on for months is through higher vaccination rates and mask-wearing in the meantime. But as we have seen throughout the pandemic, a large swathe of the Republican Party cannot allow any issue to go unpoliticised, even if that issue pertains to a staunchly non-ideological, fast-spreading contagion.

Now that half of the US population is vaccinated and the incidence of severe side effects is extremely rare, false assertions that they alter genes, leave women infertile or implant recipients with a microchip have less uptake among sceptics.

More people in Covid-19 hotspots, where Republicans have portrayed an American biomedical breakthrough as a liberal plot, are seeing friends and family members of all ages stricken by the illness. Vaccination rates in these areas have finally begun to rise, but that is in spite of the attitude that most within the Republican Party have taken towards the pandemic.

“Senator Rick Scott to CDC & Biden administration: Vaccine mandates are latest attempt to try to control Americans,” the Florida lawmaker announced in response to US President Joe Biden’s decision to make federal employees undergo regular Covid-19 testing if they are not vaccinated.

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.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}On Balance | Why shifts in vaccine, infrastructure support suggest US Republicans are not beyond hope

On Balance | Why shifts in vaccine, infrastructure support suggest US Republicans are not beyond hope