July 2021

The month opens on a triumphant note. At a July 4 White House event, President Biden tells the country it is “closer than ever” to declaring independence from the virus and that “America is coming back together.” The optimism holds for barely three weeks before officials walk nearly all of it back.

The Delta variant supplies the reason. The CDC estimates on July 6 that Delta already accounts for more than half of U.S. cases, and by July 20 it puts the figure at 83%. Studies out of China claim that people infected with Delta carry roughly 1,000 times more virus than those infected with the original strain, a striking number that circulates widely before it is independently confirmed. Reported cases climb about 70% in a single week.

Officials settle fast on a phrase to explain the surge. CDC director Rochelle Walensky and Anthony Fauci repeat that upward of 99% of recent COVID deaths are among the unvaccinated, and outlet after outlet adopts “a pandemic of the unvaccinated” almost verbatim. On July 21 the Associated Press runs a fact-check concluding that Biden overstates the protection the shots provide, an early sign that the clean 99% story leaves things out.

Uptake has stalled. Cash offers, lotteries, and $100 payments produce limited movement while states sit on millions of surplus doses nearing their expiration dates, with Arkansas alone letting 80,000 shots lapse at month’s end. Biden’s plan for door-to-door “surge teams” draws immediate objection from conservatives who question federal workers knocking on private doors.

The unvaccinated become the month’s designated villain. Newspapers run deathbed-regret dispatches from overwhelmed hospitals, an infectious-disease physician on CNN calls the unvaccinated “variant factories,” and coverage lingers on individuals such as a Los Angeles man who had mocked the shots and then died. Republican lawmakers in several states push back by drafting bills to treat vaccine refusal as a civil-rights matter, arguing that employers should not be able to compel a medical procedure.

Misinformation is named as the driver. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy calls it an “urgent threat,” a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate identifies a “disinformation dozen” said to be behind most anti-vaccine content online, and on July 16 Biden says of Facebook and other platforms, “they’re killing people.” Around the same time press secretary Jen Psaki says the White House is flagging problematic posts for Facebook, prompting First Amendment objections that the government is steering a private company to remove speech.

Fauci spends much of the month under fire. He and Senator Rand Paul trade accusations of lying at a July 20 Senate hearing over whether U.S. funding reached gain-of-function work in Wuhan. The lab-leak theory, waved away for a year, gains ground: WHO chief Tedros says it was “premature” to rule it out, a POLITICO-Harvard poll finds most Americans now believe the virus escaped a lab, and a researcher recovers early viral sequences that had been deleted from a U.S. database. Paul sends a criminal referral on Fauci to the Justice Department, and a Maryland man is arrested for threatening to kill Fauci and his family.

England presses ahead with “Freedom Day” on July 19, dropping legal mask rules and other restrictions even as cases rise. More than 1,200 scientists sign a letter branding the move an “unethical experiment” that could breed vaccine-resistant variants, Health Secretary Sajid Javid tests positive days before, and Boris Johnson marks the day in quarantine. The forecast collapse does not arrive on schedule; UK infections begin falling within a week of the reopening, an outcome the warnings had not anticipated.

The vaccines send mixed signals. Pfizer announces a booster will be needed, and the FDA and CDC publicly rebuke the company, with Fauci saying the fully vaccinated do not need one yet. Israel reports Pfizer is 39% effective against Delta infection, and Pfizer’s own data show efficacy sliding to 84% after six months. The FDA adds a Guillain-Barré warning to the Johnson & Johnson shot, myocarditis is linked to the mRNA vaccines, and officials repeat that the benefits still outweigh the risks.

Breakthrough infections move to the center of the story. An outbreak traced to Fourth of July gatherings in Provincetown, Massachusetts, turns up hundreds of cases, and CDC data show about three-quarters of them in fully vaccinated people carrying high viral loads. Similar clusters surface in Singapore and in a Chinese airport outbreak, where most cases are also among the vaccinated. The findings sit awkwardly against months of messaging that the vaccinated could not spread the virus, and the CDC’s decision to stop investigating mild breakthrough cases draws criticism for cutting off the very data that would settle the question.

On July 27 the CDC reverses its own guidance and recommends that even the fully vaccinated wear masks indoors in areas of high transmission, along with schoolchildren. The reversal lands weeks after the agency told vaccinated Americans they could take their masks off. A Slate piece revisits Fauci’s March 2020 assurance that Americans did not need masks and labels it a “noble lie.”

Mandates spread in response. The Department of Veterans Affairs becomes the first federal agency to require shots for its health workers, Biden orders federal employees to get vaccinated or submit to regular testing, New York City and California adopt vaccine-or-test rules, and Google, Facebook, and Disney announce requirements of their own. Abroad the pushback is loud: tens of thousands march against vaccine passes and lockdowns in France, Australia, Italy, and Britain, and Spain’s top court rules the country’s hard lockdown unconstitutional.

The Tokyo Olympics open on July 23 under a state of emergency, with spectators banned and a steady stream of athletes testing positive. Tokyo sets daily case records through the closing days of the month while Japan’s prime minister insists the Games are not to blame.

Abroad the picture is bleaker. Researchers estimate India’s true death toll near 4 million, roughly ten times the official count. Indonesia runs short of oxygen as Delta overwhelms its hospitals, Africa battles a third wave amid vaccine scarcity, and the CDC reports that U.S. life expectancy fell 1.5 years in 2020, the steepest drop since World War II.

Key Dates and Stories:

• July 4: Biden Declares Success in Beating Pandemic in July 4 Speech, Bloomberg
• July 9: Pfizer says it’s time for a Covid booster; FDA and CDC say not so fast, CNN
• July 12: FDA adds new warning on Johnson & Johnson vaccine related to rare autoimmune disorder, Washington Post
• July 15: The WHO’s Chief Says It Was Premature To Rule Out A Lab Leak As The Pandemic’s Origin, NPR
• July 16: ‘They’re killing people’: Biden aims blistering attack at tech companies over vaccine falsehoods, Washington Post
• July 17: Majority of Covid misinformation came from 12 people, report finds, The Guardian
• July 19: On England’s ‘Freedom Day,’ masks come off at nightclubs, even as coronavirus cases approach January peak, Washington Post
• July 20: Fauci, Paul clash on virus origins, trade charges of lying, AP
• July 21: AP FACT CHECK: Biden goes too far in assurances on vaccines, AP
• July 23: Troubled Tokyo Olympics kick off amid pandemic fears, France 24
• July 26: C.D.C. Will Not Investigate Mild Infections in Vaccinated Americans, NYT
• July 27: CDC Urges Vaccinated People To Mask Up Indoors In Places With High Virus Transmission, NPR
• July 30: CDC study shows 74% of people infected in Massachusetts Covid outbreak were fully vaccinated, CNBC