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The tone of some Republican leaders on COVID-19 vaccines has shifted in response to the highly infectious delta variant, but a continued emphasis on values like personal liberty and privacy could muddle the message. The delta variant is proliferating, comprising 83 percent of cases in the United States and an even higher percentage in places with lower vaccination rates, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with repercussions for the country's most vulnerable people as well as the economy’s fragile recovery. (Kopp, 7/23)

Across the country, GOP lawmakers are rallying around the cause of individual freedom to counter community-based disease mitigation methods, moves experts say leave the country ill-equipped to counter the resurgent coronavirus and a future, unknown outbreak. In some states, anger at perceived overreach by health officials has prompted legislative attempts to limit their authority, including new state laws that prevent the closure of businesses or allow lawmakers to rescind mask mandates. Some state courts have reined in the emergency and regulatory powers governors have wielded against the virus. And in its recent rulings and analysis, the U.S. Supreme Court has signaled its willingness to limit disease mitigation in the name of religious freedom. (Sellers and Stanley-Becker, 7/25)

George Grabryan and Mike Melton have been helping people here on the bank of the Tennessee River survive devastating tornadoes, floods and other disasters for decades. Ask any local official in rural Lauderdale County, and they have the two emergency managers’ numbers saved in their phones — just in case. But Covid-19 has broken those bonds. Despite Grabryan and Melton’s best efforts, only 34 percent of county residents are vaccinated, even as the highly transmissible Delta variant has driven up new infections by 300 percent in the last two weeks. Three people have died, and health officials predict that many more will follow before the summer mist lifts off the cornfields. (Banco, 7/24)

After an all too brief respite, the United States is again at a crossroads in the pandemic. The number of infections has ticked up — slowly at first, then swiftly — to 51,000 cases per day, on average, more than four times the rate a month ago. The country may again see overflowing hospitals, exhausted health care workers and thousands of needless deaths. The more contagious Delta variant may be getting the blame, but fueling its rise is an older, more familiar foe: vaccine hesitancy and refusal, long pervasive in the United States. Were a wider swath of the population vaccinated, there would be no resurgence — of the Delta variant, or Alpha variant, or any other version of the coronavirus. (Mandavilli, 7/25)

The Catholic Health Association on Friday joined the growing chorus of prominent healthcare associations and health systems supporting or implementing employee COVID-19 vaccination mandates. CHA said it "strongly supports" member health systems as they take necessary steps toward ensuring as many healthcare workers get vaccinated as possible. The organization's announcement comes after dozens of providers and several associations have backed vaccine mandates for healthcare workers. (Bannow, 7/23)

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) announced on Facebook Sunday evening that he and his wife had contracted COVID-19 for the second time, calling it "far more challenging." “I have COVID, Becca has COVID, my son has COVID. Becca and I had COVID before, early on, in January 2020, before the world really knew what it was. So, this is our second experience with the CCP biological attack weaponized virus… and this episode is far more challenging. It has required all of my devoted energy,” he wrote, referring to a conspiracy that the virus was engineered to be a biological weapon. (Vakil, 7/25)

Phil Valentine, who once wrote that he was not going to get the vaccine because his chances of dying from the virus were “way less than one percent,” is now hospitalized, attached to a ventilator at night, and to an oxygen mask during the day, so he can breathe. (Masters and Heyward, 7/25)