Daily-Dose

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From New Yorker

From Vox

The House certified the election results from Arizona and Pennsylvania, despite objections from over 100 Republicans.

The majority of House Republicans still chose to reject electoral votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania, hours after a pro-Trump mob fueled by conspiracy theories stormed the Capitol Wednesday, leaving one woman dead and a nation rattled.

These votes had no material effect on the transition of power. After the Capitol had been cleared, Congress met in a joint session to fulfill its legal obligation to count the Electoral College’s votes, but given that Democrats hold a majority in the House and most Senate Republicans were unwilling to object, there was no path forward, and the votes failed. A majority of both chambers have to reject a state’s votes for an objection to stick.

However, after a day of violent insurrection, it has become too clear just how dangerous it can be to feed into anti-democratic delusions.

Ever since Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks announced his intention to object in early December, the idea gained steam among the Republican caucus; at one point, as many as 14 Republican senators, led by Sens. Josh Hawley (MO) and Ted Cruz (TX), had signed on to object as well.

The objecting members point to baseless allegations of voting irregularities as well as claims that large proportions of their constituents believe the election was stolen as the basis for their stance. However, these Republicans have ignored their own role in fomenting conspiracy theories around the election. Their concerns also fail to account for the overwhelming evidence that there was no widespread voter fraud.

President Donald Trump and prominent Republicans’ focus on the normally mundane counting of the votes turned January 6 into perhaps the last showdown for Trump’s supporters who believed the election had been stolen. Marching from a rally where they were egged on by the president himself, rioters flooded into the Capitol and managed to stall the proceedings.

The day’s events seemed to have a clear effect on Senate Republicans: In the end, about half of the senators planning to object changed their minds. Only six — 12 percent of the Senate Republican caucus — voted to object. However, 121 House Republicans, or 57 percent of the House Republican caucus, chose to vote in favor of the baseless belief that Arizona’s Electoral College votes were somehow compromised. And 138 House Republicans voted in favor of challenging Pennsylvania’s results.

Tempers flared during the debate over Pennsylvania in the midst of a fiery speech by Rep. Conor Lamb (D-PA) where he called out some of his Republican colleagues for lying about the fairness of the election. “We know that that attack today, it didn’t materialize out of nowhere, it was inspired by lies — the same lies that you’re hearing in this room tonight. And the members who are repeating those lies should be ashamed of themselves, their constituents should be ashamed of them,” he said.

"Get outta here!"

A confrontation breaks out after GOP Rep. Morgan Griffith asks to strike out comments from Rep. Conor Lamb saying Republicans lied about the election.

Lamb replies, "The truth hurts" https://t.co/wTKxzqAo9U pic.twitter.com/XDA9ArvRrG

— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 7, 2021

Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA) asked for Lamb’s remarks about lies to be stricken from the record, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) declined. “You say that about me every single day,” she said.

Disorder briefly broke out, with members talking and shouting and standing. Eventually, order was regained. “The truth hurts,” Lamb said.

In the early morning hours on Thursday, Congress formally recognized Joe Biden’s victory. He will be sworn in on January 20.

Britain is delaying the second dose to get more people their first shot. The US isn’t.

In the past couple of weeks, experts and pundits have debated a big question surrounding the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna: Do we stick to two doses for every person, spaced a couple of weeks apart, as was originally planned? Or should we go ahead and give out single doses to more people even when we’re not sure we’ll manage the second dose as planned — to get a shot in as many arms as possible, even if there’s less certainty about the efficacy of that approach?

Britain has taken the latter approach, and much of Europe looks inclined to follow. But the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Monday that the US will not follow them — at least not until we’ve collected more data. High-profile scientists including Dr. Anthony Fauci have said it would be a mistake.

To understand this debate, let’s rewind the tape to mid-December, when the FDA issued an emergency use authorization for the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine against Covid-19. A similar vaccine from Moderna was approved shortly after. Both are highly effective at protecting people from getting sick and dying from the coronavirus. But we are just a few weeks into the rollout and we don’t have enough doses, with some 18 million shipped so far for a population of about 330 million — and lots of at-risk people aren’t yet vaccinated. Meanwhile, a more contagious virus variant is spreading, and vaccine distribution in the US is going more slowly than initially planned.

Some prominent scientists and public health researchers have proposed adapting the US’s vaccine approach in response. They suggest getting as many people the first dose as possible, even if that means there aren’t doses available to deliver the second shot on schedule (three or four weeks after the first dose, depending on the vaccine). Both Pfizer and Moderna tested the efficacy of giving people two doses of the vaccine, spaced three weeks (Pfizer) or one month (Moderna) apart. This two-dose regimen is 95 percent effective against the virus. But according to data from their trials, getting just one dose still reduces a person’s chances of getting Covid-19 by 80 to 90 percent, at least initially.

That finding is what has prompted the proposal that we delay giving people second doses until everyone has a first dose. The idea is simple: You have two people eligible for a vaccine. Does it make sense to vaccinate the one who’s already been vaccinated with a second dose, or the one who hasn’t been given a dose at all? By using a two-dose regimen, we’re choosing the one already vaccinated, despite the vaccines’ scarcity.

Britain has already moved ahead with such an approach, delaying second vaccinations with the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccine for as long as three months in order to get more people the first dose.

The debate over this proposal in the US gets at many of the biggest challenges of doing science in the middle of a pandemic like this one. We like to approve drugs and vaccines only once we’re highly confident in our approach — but in a pandemic, we sometimes have to guess with our best informed estimate, not with a rigorously demonstrated solution. Waiting months for additional research could cost lives, so we may have to decide what we’ll do in the interim as we wait for that work.

This debate is important in its own right: Figuring out the right way to vaccinate will mean the pandemic ends weeks or months sooner. But it’s also a debate about something deeper, a challenge that has recurred throughout the pandemic: How should we think about expertise and policy in the face of incomplete data and uncertainty?

The case for delaying the second dose to get more shots into arms now

An mRNA vaccine like the one from Pfizer and Moderna contains a strand of RNA that the body interprets as instructions to build a protein. That protein is a key one on the virus that causes Covid-19, and once the instructions are executed, the immune system sees the unfamiliar protein and learns how to mount an immune response.

In the clinical trials, Pfizer and Moderna tested the efficacy of their vaccines by giving two doses, one month apart, to people in the trial group, and giving two placebo shots to people in the control group. Their research was aimed at estimating the efficacy of the whole regimen. But they collected data on outcomes throughout the trial, which means we do know how well the first shot prevented Covid-19 by itself, during the weeks before the second shot was delivered. And the answer is that it worked reasonably well.

“We do not know for sure, but for at least a month or more, a single shot mRNA vaccines should provide ~90% protection,” Yale virologist Akiko Iwasaki wrote in a Twitter thread calling for delaying the second dose, citing an additional Moderna analysis of patients who for whatever reason missed their booster shot. Iwasaki’s estimate of 90 percent effectiveness is in the ballpark of estimates from other experts, though it’s an extrapolation from limited data (more on that below).

“Giving 100 million people — particularly those at high risk — a single shot that is 80 to 90 percent effective will save far more lives than giving 50 million people two shots that are 95 percent effective,” Brown University School of Public Health dean Ashish Jha and University of California San Francisco Department of Medicine Chair Robert Wachter argue in a Washington Post op-ed.

There’s not much data on the question of how long the immunity from the first dose will persist without the second dose. But, Wachter and Jha argue in their piece, we don’t see immunity start to wane over the weeks after the first dose, and “experts believe it is extremely unlikely immunity would somehow plummet by week eight or even week 12 following a single shot.” And hopefully by the time immunity does start to decline, there’ll be greater availability of vaccine doses, and booster shots can be provided to everyone who needs them.

What’s uncontroversial among public health officials is that giving two doses, as studied, is the ideal thing to do. We know that the two-dose regimen works. The evidence points to protection from two doses being stronger than protection from one dose. Even the strongest proponents of delaying the second dose agree that in an ideal world, the second dose would happen on time — and some of them have argued that for the highest-risk populations, such as those in nursing homes, it’s worth doing a second dose even if the second dose is being delayed for the general population.

The dispute is over what to do given the deeply non-ideal situation we face. There aren’t enough vaccines for everyone who wants them. It may be many months before there are. In the meantime, a new, more contagious variant of the virus is spreading, and hospitals are overwhelmed. Ideal solutions, argue proponents of delaying the second dose, aren’t what we have available.

The case for offering the second dose on time

But the US looks unlikely to follow Britain in delaying second doses of the vaccine. In a statement on Monday, the FDA directly addressed the debate, coming down against delaying the second dose.

“[A]t this time, suggesting changes to the FDA-authorized dosing or schedules of these vaccines is premature and not rooted solidly in the available evidence,” its statement reads. “Without appropriate data supporting such changes in vaccine administration, we run a significant risk of placing public health at risk, undermining the historic vaccination efforts to protect the population from COVID-19.”

After noting that the evidence about the lasting efficacy of a single dose is very limited, the agency statement argues, “If people do not truly know how protective a vaccine is, there is the potential for harm because they may assume that they are fully protected when they are not, and accordingly, alter their behavior to take unnecessary risks.”

“We must not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by administering vaccines in any way besides that for which they were carefully evaluated,” Georgetown virologist Angela Rasmussen and University of Alberta infectious diseases doctor Ilan Schwartz argued in the Guardian, citing worries that we don’t know how long immunity lasts and that partial immunity could invite the spread of strains that the virus doesn’t address.

Other experts told the New York Times that they worried delaying the second dose would undermine trust in vaccination and increase vaccine hesitancy, making it harder to get everybody vaccinated.

“Even the appearance of tinkering has negatives, in terms of people having trust in the process,” Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida, told the Times. “The longer the duration between doses, the more likely people are to forget to come back,” she said, adding, “Or people may not remember which vaccine that they got, and we don’t know what a mix and match might do.”

Dr. Moncef Slaoui, scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed who has himself said Operation Warp Speed is considering using half-doses of the Moderna vaccines, said in an emailed statement to the Times on Sunday that “the approach some countries are taking of delaying the booster shot could backfire and could decrease confidence in the vaccines.”

Given the absence of data, some have advocated doing full-fledged studies comparing the efficacy of one dose versus two. That’s what physician Peter Bach argues at Stat News: “this study could enroll 30,000 participants in a handful of weeks and start generating insights in a few months. If we move on this question, and I can’t think of a more important one to prioritize, preliminary data could be in hand by March.”

The FDA’s statement, which mentioned half-dosing and delayed dosing as “reasonable questions to consider and evaluate in clinical trials,” does not seem to rule out such a study, but no one has yet announced plans to conduct one.

What the one-shot, two-shot debate has to teach us about uncertainty and science

The pandemic has repeatedly challenged some assumptions of science communications, where journalists confidently report what is evidence-based and what has “no evidence.” That vocabulary has shaped the conversation about vaccine dosing; for example, Pfizer has said there is “no data” to demonstrate that the immunity from the first dose lasts more than 21 days.

It’s true that length of immunity from the first dose is not what their clinical trials studied. But scientific evidence isn’t all-or-nothing like that. In many cases, scientists (and historians, and researchers in every field) have deeply limited evidence about the topic of interest. Often they’re in a position of trying to make inferences from the results of other similar events, from a few unusual data points that arose due to accidents, or from measured results that were not the primary aim of the trial they were measured in.

Sources of evidence like these are being employed when researchers try to estimate the likely duration of immunity from a single vaccine dose. The UK’s Working Group that made the delayed dosing recommendation “concluded that vaccine efficacy will be maintained with dosing intervals longer than 21 days … based on clinical trial data that showed the vaccine was 90.5 percent effective against preventing Covid-19 after the first dose once the protection that starts at around 12 days kicks in, and there was no evidence to suggest that the effectiveness of the vaccine is declining toward the end of the 21-day period following the first dose,” a spokesperson said.

From one perspective, that study produced “no data” about effectiveness past 21 days. For another research team, it shows there’s “no evidence” of declining effectiveness.

It seems reasonable to move past claims of “no evidence” and instead acknowledge we’re dealing with limited evidence — not ideal, but not total ignorance either. We do know some things: Booster shots are common for vaccines, but usually to make immunity years-long or lifelong; in general, immunity doesn’t vanish in the space of just a few months, and immunity from Covid-19 after contracting it looks like it’s typically longer-lasting than that (though vaccines with mRNA are new and we have less evidence about their long-term effects on immune function). The evidence from the few participants in trials who missed their booster shot is limited, but it’s still evidence.

“It’s been a repeated problem throughout the pandemic that we have relied on this ‘we have the evidence/we don’t have the evidence’ binary, meaning that we have moved slowly, waiting for rock-solid confirmation; but moving faster, making decisions on imperfect information, would have saved a lot of lives,” British science journalist Tom Chivers argued in an article Wednesday about the difference between the US and UK approaches to vaccination.

While randomized controlled trials (RCT) are incredibly valuable for determining how well vaccines work, decisions about vaccination in a pandemic require many judgment calls that we unfortunately cannot assess in advance with an RCT. And to be clear, concerns like whether the change in vaccination schedules will limit public confidence in the vaccine, increase vaccine hesitancy, or prompt individuals to take risks, believing themselves fully immune when they aren’t, are very legitimate and should no doubt feature in our reasoning and planning about vaccination.

But those concerns have also not been rigorously demonstrated in an RCT. No one has conducted a controlled study on how delaying the second dose will affect vaccine hesitancy. Instead, public health officials who raise vaccine hesitancy concerns are looking at lots of factors and making their best informed prediction about what will happen — and public health officials who estimate that delayed second dosing is worth it are doing the same thing.

It’s tempting, when faced with decisions of this magnitude, when lives are at stake and the pandemic has frayed our nerves and our trust, to want to retreat to the solid, reassuring embrace of perfect knowledge. But almost all the key questions before us will never be answered to our satisfaction in an RCT, at least not immediately. What increases vaccine hesitancy? How much risk compensation will there be? Will delaying the second dose save lives by getting vaccines first to those who need them?

There’s no proven truth to retreat to at this moment, just our best guesses — and the fight to gather more information and make better guesses next time.

Storming the Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the government is a serious crime.

On Wednesday, a violent mob loyal to outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol in an effort to disrupt Congress’s formal certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over Trump.

One might think that an attempt to literally overthrow the duly elected government of the United States would be met with swift and harsh action by law enforcement. But, thus far, most members of this insurrection have escaped unscathed. As of this writing, few people have been arrested — the number may be as low as 13.

But federal law enforcement is hardly powerless against such an attack on democracy.

On Twitter, University of Minnesota law professor Alan Rozenshtein identified numerous federal criminal statutes that members of the pro-Trump mob that briefly occupied the Capitol may have violated. People who participated in the insurrection could have been arrested by the Capitol Police — and they could still be arrested by a federal law enforcement agency if there is sufficient photographic, video, or other evidence that they committed a crime. 

    <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/iR0oRQacjnWY0AuFlHhw0hq17mo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22218982/GettyImages_1294949487.jpg" />
  <cite>Win McNamee/Getty Images</cite>
  <figcaption>A pro-Trump mob confronts US Capitol Police outside the Senate chamber of the Capitol building.</figcaption>

This list, it is worth noting, does not include treason. The treason statute applies to someone who “levies war against [the United States] or adheres to their enemies.” Thus, unless Trump qualifies as an enemy of the United States, the treason statute likely does not apply to this mob.

Crimes against the United States and its Constitution

Several federal laws punish activity attacking the United States government itself, or that attacks the Constitution.

First, federal law makes it a crime to engage “in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof.” Someone who violates this statute faces a fine and up to 10 years in prison.

It’s also worth noting that this law makes it a crime to incite such a rebellion, and violators “shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.” Thus, to the extent that a government official was complicit in Wednesday’s riot, they could potentially be stripped of their office.

Second, the law prohibits a “seditious conspiracy” to “overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States” or to “by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.” Participants in such a conspiracy could face up to 20 years in prison. 

    <img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VcZmjRvXAB8sZ6NgZYGSppLRCNk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22218980/GettyImages_1294949419.jpg" />
  <cite>Win McNamee/Getty Images</cite>
  <figcaption>A pro-Trump mob breaks into the US Capitol.</figcaption>

Third, federal law provides that “whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States ... by force or violence” may face up to 20 years in prison, and may also be stripped of their ability to be employed by the federal government for up to five years.

Because this statute criminalizes speech, anyone charged under it would likely claim that prosecuting them violates the First Amendment. But the Supreme Court recognizes several exceptions to the First Amendment for things like incitement to imminent criminal acts or so-called “true threats.” So some of the insurrectionists might be convicted under this statute despite constitutional safeguards for free speech.

Finally, another statute makes it a crime to conspire “to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person ... in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” Thus, to the extent that members of Congress were exercising a “privilege” secured to them by the Constitution while they were disrupted by rioters, those rioters could potentially face criminal charges.

Violators of this statute face up to 10 years in prison.

Crimes against the peace

Members of the pro-Trump insurrection may have also violated several federal statutes intended to protect the peace.

One such law, for example, makes it a crime to transport a firearm or explosive “knowing or having reason to know or intending that the same will be used unlawfully in furtherance of a civil disorder.” Violations of this statute may be punished by up to five years in prison.

Another law makes it a crime to riot, to incite a riot, or to “aid or abet any person in inciting or participating in or carrying on a riot.” Violators of this statute may also face up to five years in prison.

Additionally, it is a crime to “knowingly possess or cause to be present a firearm or other dangerous weapon in a Federal facility.” Violating this statute is ordinarily punished by up to one year in prison, but if someone brings a weapon into a federal facility “with intent that a firearm or other dangerous weapon be used in the commission of a crime,” they could be imprisoned for up to five years.

Crimes against government officials

Other criminal laws seek to protect the lives and safety of federal officials. Anyone who attempts to kill a member of Congress, for example, faces life in prison. And anyone who assaults a member of Congress may face 10 years in prison if they do so with a dangerous weapon or if “personal injury results.”

Even a relatively minor assault against a federal lawmaker can be punished by a year in prison.

Additionally, the law prohibits a conspiracy to “prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from accepting or holding any office, trust, or place of confidence under the United States.” As the purpose of the pro-Trump insurrection appears to be to prevent President-elect Biden from holding the office of president, this statute could apply to members of that insurrection.

Violators of this law face up to six years in prison.

Crimes against federal property

Other federal laws make it a crime to damage, rob, or unlawfully occupy federal property.

One statute, for example, makes it a crime to damage federal property — if the amount of the damage exceeds $1,000, violators face up to 10 years in prison, while lesser damage may result in up to one year in prison. Another statute makes it a crime to rob “personal property belonging to the United States,” and violators of this statute face up to 15 years in prison.

These statutes could potentially be used against members of the pro-Trump mob who damaged parts of the Capitol. In a widely circulated photo, for example, an apparent member of the mob is seen carrying a lectern from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. If, in fact, this individual stole that lectern, he could be prosecuted for doing so. 

    <img alt="Congress Holds Joint Session To Ratify 2020 Presidential Election" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Kc5JQEEycuqxy5LcHJiBnK1LkIs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22219091/1294949346.jpg" />
  <cite>Win McNamee/Getty Images</cite>
  <figcaption>A Trump supporter carries the lectern of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi through the rotunda of the US Capitol Building after a pro-Trump mob stormed the building on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC.</figcaption>

Another statute makes it a crime if someone “enters or remains in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority.” Such grounds may include any restricted area where a person “protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting.” Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the Senate when rioters breached the Capitol, is protected by the Secret Service.

Violators of this statute may face up to 10 years in prison if they carry a firearm or other deadly weapon, or if their crime “results in significant bodily injury.” Otherwise, they face up to one year.

Finally, it is a crime to assault “any person having lawful charge, control, or custody of any ... property of the United States, with intent to rob, steal, or purloin such” property. This statute could potentially be applied to insurrectionists who committed assault as part of an effort to rob the Capitol.

Violators of this statute face up to 10 years in prison — or up to 25 years if they put their victim’s “life in jeopardy by the use of a dangerous weapon.”

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