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This time a year ago, as Indian American physicians, we watched helplessly as the United States, our home, succumbed to the first wave of Covid-19. This past week, we watched our ancestral home, India, succumb to a catastrophic surge of the virus with no end in sight. As hospital beds fill, so do our WhatsApp messages with pleas from family and friends abroad who are suffering -- and dying -- amid a medical apocalypse. Our social media feeds are filled with horrifying images of Indians gasping for air rejected by hospitals devoid of oxygen and beds, mass cremations and burials and people dying in the streets. (Bhavna Lall, Pooja Gala, Reshma Gupta, Jay Bhatt, Shikha Jain, Ali Khan, Lipi Roy and Vineet Arora, 5/5)

As physicians who practice on opposite ends of the United States and in vastly different communities, we’re watching the national race to vaccinate our fellow Americans with both optimism and alarm. First, the optimism: To date, over 147 million Americans have received at least one vaccine dose; nearly 100 million people, or close to 30 percent of the U.S. population, are now fully vaccinated. We are now averaging three million vaccinations a day. Our two states, Florida and Michigan, are reaching out to, and vaccinating, residents. And we have witnessed firsthand the public health workers, nurses and fellow physicians who continue to provide compassionate care for very sick people, more than one year into an emotionally and physically exhausting pandemic. Over 580,000 Americans have died due to coronavirus; at least 3,600 of them have been health care workers. (Dr. Rob Davidson and Dr. Bernard Ashby, 5/4)

In Maryland, Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has announced a $100 bonus for every state employee who gets vaccinated against covid-19 and keeps the vaccine up to date. Maryland joins a long list of governments, philanthropies and corporations dangling every sort of incentive — literally from dollars to doughnuts (in the form of a free Krispy Kreme glazed) — to entice Americans to take a jab or two for the team. But such incentives are unlikely to move the needle on vaccine hesitancy. With the medical doctors Anthony S. Fauci and Deborah Birx reduced to cannon fodder in the covid culture war, the psychologists Daniel Kahneman and the late Amos Tversky are now dominating the persuasion effort. Pioneers in the field of behavioral economics, they rank among the most influential thinkers of the late 20th century. (David Von Drehle, 5/4)

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have collectively focused on that point in the future when so many people have been inoculated or have obtained natural immunity, normal life could resume and this painful period would dissolve into the mists of history. But it seems that this magical moment in which the U.S. hits “herd immunity” and COVID-19 is stopped dead in its tracks isn’t likely to happen soon, if ever. (5/4)

When Covid-19 began sweeping across the globe in 2020, many experts expected India to be the vaccine savior of the developing world. That thought bubble has burst. In the early days of the pandemic, as multiple vaccines were being rushed into clinical trials, intellectual property laws and patents were being viewed as big barriers that would prevent low-income countries from accessing lifesaving vaccines. That hasn’t come to pass. Instead, the real problems stem from the abject lack of procurement planning by a country that has immense vaccine manufacturing capacity and its shoddy regulatory oversight. (Dinesh Thakur, 5/5)

The COVID-19 vaccines have been a gift from science to control the worst health pandemic in a century. Developed and deployed in less than year, they have become a potent weapon against an unpredictable virus. But their success raises a question: Under what circumstances might Americans be required to show proof of immunization? The city of Chicago is exploring the idea of a “Vax Pass,” particularly for younger people, which would be required as proof of immunization before they’d be allowed into certain venues, such as concerts. The passes might be applied toward preferred seating to encourage more people to get vaccinated. (5/4)

The politicization of the mask is one of many calamities of the country’s pandemic response. Former President Donald Trump led his fellow partisans in turning an easy, effective, community-spirited precaution into yet another tribal signifier, pitting bare-faced conservatives against masked liberals, with untold and unnecessary consequences for public health. Left-leaning enclaves such as the Bay Area responded in kind, adopting masks so eagerly and faithfully that public masklessness is widely regarded with suspicion. But our masks are at long last coming off, at least according to official guidance in certain circumstances. Local and state officials have joined the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in advising that face coverings be forgone in uncrowded outdoor settings. In light of research showing outdoor transmission of the coronavirus to be extremely rare, the CDC advised last week that anyone walking, running or biking alone outdoors could do so without a mask. (5/4)