Normalcy appears to be out of the country’s grasp with the recent uptick in Covid-19 cases fueled by the delta variant, a highly contagious strain of Covid-19. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the delta variant was identified in 80 to 87 percent of all US Covid-19 cases in the last two weeks of July. This has impacted states with low vaccination numbers the most.

Louisiana, where just over 37 percent of residents are fully vaccinated, is the fifth-least vaccinated state, according to the Mayo Clinic, and is currently leading the country in an eruption of new cases after infection rates began to climb in early July.

Daily records continue to go up and the state reported over 6,000 new cases on Friday, according to the Louisiana Department of Health. According to a recent update from Baton Rouge General Hospital obtained by WAFB’s Steve Caparotta, 47 percent of the patients infected with Covid-19 in the hospital’s care are in the ICU and only 15 of these patients had been vaccinated. The hospital stated that workers this weekend are “in the middle of their toughest fight against this virus.”

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards reinstated the indoor masking mandate Monday in response to the worsening crisis. “It has become extremely clear that our current recommendations on their own are not strong enough to deal with Louisiana’s fourth surge of Covid,” Edwards told reporters after announcing the mandate.

During a Friday press conference, Edwards made a grim assessment: “Things are, if anything, worse today than they were on Monday. Unfortunately, the eyes of the nation are on Louisiana right now.”

Though less than a week old, the mask mandate has already faced backlash, notably at a school board meeting in St. Tammany parish on Thursday. One parent falsely claimed their child would be hindered from learning due to masks cutting off oxygen to the brain. The conspiracy theory was debunked last year by Reuters and others.

With the school year rapidly approaching, the safety of children in Louisiana is a major concern. There is no approved vaccine for children under age 12, and only 13 percent of people ages 12 to 17 are vaccinated in Louisiana, which leaves young people vulnerable. According to Dr. Trey Dunbar, president of Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital in Baton Rouge, more than 50 percent of the children in that hospital infected with Covid-19 are under intensive care.

Before the statewide mask mandate was put in place, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education had chosen to leave masking decisions up to individual schools and only the school district of New Orleans required indoor mask wearing. The statewide mandate means that more children will be safe, but it is up to schools to enforce it. 

Apart from the mask mandate, schools have the freedom to construct their own set of rules and safety precautions, which leads to disparities in how Covid-19 is managed in the education sector. According to the guidebook for the Jefferson parish school districts, schools are largely enforcing in-person K-12 learning except for high school students, who want to benefit from the flexibility and extra time that virtual school allows.

But while high school students are eligible to get vaccinated and would therefore be safer than younger children in an in-person classroom setting, children in grade school are still vulnerable. The guidebook also states: “Schools should plan for and expect that some students/staff will contract COVID-19 during the school year given the levels of COVID-19 in our communities.” This kind of mixed guidance can be confusing from a public health perspective, since more access to virtual learning could reduce the risk of exposure.

Making masks mandatory again is a productive step, but because the delta variant is highly transmittable, it is not enough. Increasing the number of vaccinated people in the state is the best way forward, but in a state where conspiracy theory holds more value than public health policy for some, this is easier said than done. Misinformation about what is in the vaccine has caused some people to refuse the jab. In Shreveport, a recent city council meeting grew heated when a woman began protesting against the vaccine, claiming that unvaccinated Americans would be unfairly monitored and that vaccinated people could be used in experiments.

These are both false claims, but the damage of this type of rhetoric may contribute to low vaccination rates. According to a study by Donelson Forsyth, a professor at the University of Richmond, resistance to vaccination and mask mandates is concentrated in certain geographical areas because of something called “groupthink.” Decisions made by a group and followed en masse prevent individuals from logically analyzing information and considering other alternatives, which may explain why certain states have remained Covid-19 hotspots.

It’s important to look at the bigger picture of Louisiana’s wave of Covid-19 cases as well. Researchers at Georgetown University identified the largest clusters of unvaccinated people in the United States and found that most of these areas were experiencing rising cases and examples of the virus mutating, which poses a risk to the greater population. Near the top of this list: Shreveport, Louisiana. “Those vulnerable clusters put all of the United States — and to some extent, the world — at risk for going back to 2020, since high-transmission areas can become breeding grounds for Covid-19 variants that could go on to evade Covid-19 vaccines,” wrote CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen and John Bonifield.

While parts of Louisiana pose a risk to the rest of the country, people in the state are also at risk from tourists arriving for vacations. There are currently no travel restrictions in Louisiana, and Americans from all over the country are able to enter the state at will. This is especially concerning because of Louisiana’s proximity to states like Texas and Mississippi. Amarillo, Texas has one of the largest unvaccinated clusters in the country while Mississippi’s partial vaccination rate is 38.6 percent, the lowest in the country.

Another new concern, while not currently as widespread, is the lambda variant that has recently infected people in Louisiana. The first cases of the lambda variant were detected in Houston, so health care officials believe that the virus variant spread across the Texas-Louisiana border.

Despite CDC warnings against nonessential travel for people who are not fully vaccinated, and despite the ever-multiplying virus variants, tourism in Louisiana is in full swing. The tourism industry typically provides more than 240,000 jobs for Louisianians and produces about $1.9 billion in tax revenue in the state, according to the Louisiana Travel Association. Before the surge in cases due to the delta variant, the tourism industry had been approaching pre-pandemic proportions, something that Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser does not want to let go of. “We’ll be back to those regular [tourism] rates sooner than we thought if we can get through this last surge without a major hit to the tourism industry,” Nungesser told the Louisiana Radio Network at the end of July. 

Nungesser is just one among a group of Louisiana politicians who have contracted Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, including Rep. Clay Higgins, who last month contracted Covid-19 for a second time.

Congressman-elect Luke Letlow, who held numerous maskless campaign events ahead of his election, ultimately died from complications with Covid-19 weeks before taking office in December of last year. He was the first congressman to die from the virus. His widow, Julia Letlow, was elected to her husband’s seat in a special election in March; she gave an interview with CBS News this week urging her constituents to get vaccinated.

“My prayer is that not one more person has to lose their life to this virus. It is a horrific way to leave this world.” Letlow said. “We have the answer, let’s use it.”

Public health officials would agree with her. The most effective way to get through this surge is to increase vaccination rates. There has been an effort to encourage people to do this. In fact, the federal government has allocated $2.3 million in lottery money as an incentive. Louisianians have already started winning payouts, while the grand prize of $1 million is yet to be awarded. 

This effort has paid off, as Louisiana has seen an uptick of 3 percent in vaccination rates since June. But as major cities in the state prepare for the slate of upcoming fall festivals — including Festivals Acadiens in Lafayette — amid rising Covid-19 cases, there is a looming sense of deja vu. Organizers for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival announced on Sunday they were canceling the planned two-weekend festival for fall, with plans to hold the event next spring, citing rising Covid-19 cases in New Orleans. Other New Orleans festivals, like Buku and French Quarter Fest, currently appear poised to go on as planned in October.

As the pandemic first began to spread in the US in March 2020, Mardi Gras in New Orleans was in full swing, and the high concentration of people without enforced safety precautions led to a Covid-19 death rate in the city that was at one point the highest in the world. Like the rest of the country, Louisiana is trying to balance public health guidance with a desire for normal life, so the outcome of its current surge in cases is still unclear.

Update, August 8, 3:35 pm ET: Updated to include that the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival has been canceled for the fall due to rising Covid-19 numbers.

It’s August 1, and rent is due. That’s a big change for many Americans who had been unable to pay rent but were protected from eviction by a federal moratorium. Now, those protections are gone. 

Due to widespread job loss and the health risks of the Covid-19 pandemic, many renters in the US faced difficulty making their rent payments every month when the pandemic began in early 2020, and the federal government stepped in to prevent people from getting evicted in the midst of it. As part of this response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention instituted a moratorium in September 2020 that prevented landlords from evicting their tenants regardless of whether they could pay their monthly rent in full or at all. 

Last month the moratorium was already on borrowed time, as the Supreme Court had warned that it would not extend the renter protection past the end of July. Several justices including Justice Brett Kavanaugh supported this. “In my view, clear and specific congressional authorization (via new legislation) would be necessary for the CDC to extend the moratorium past July 31,” wrote Kavanaugh.

The Biden administration did challenge the Supreme Court decision on Thursday, two days before the program was set to expire, by formally asking Congress to pass an extension. But Congress would have had to pass new legislation to create an extension, and did not do so in time before leaving for an August recess, so the moratorium has officially expired. 

No more eviction protection means paying late rent, money renters don’t have

This changes a lot for renters who now have to reckon with their landlords, some of whom have not received regular rent for almost a year. Renters are now required to pay any missed payments, and in some states the landlord is owed late fees for any late payment since the moratorium was enacted. Utilities are a bit of a gray area, but generally if the landlord is responsible for paying for a certain utility, in most cases they are not permitted to turn it off.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) was at the forefront of the fight for a further moratorium extension. As a formerly homeless person who has also faced eviction in the past, she has been vocal about the need to extend the moratorium, and slept on the US Capitol steps on Friday night in protest. “I am dirty, sticky, sweaty. I still have on what I had on last night. This is how people will have to live if we don’t do something … they deserve human dignity and deserve for people that represent them to show up, do the work, to make sure basic needs are met today,” she told CNN’s Jessica Dean on Saturday. 

According to a study by the Aspen Institute and the Covid-19 Eviction Defense Project published in August of last year, nearly 40 million Americans were then at risk of eviction. People of color were, and still remain, disproportionately at risk as they are twice as likely to be renters. And the pressures that Covid-19 added just worsened the statistics. A June report by City Life/Vida Urbana and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that in the first month of Massachusetts’s state of emergency during the pandemic, 78 percent of eviction filings in Boston were in communities of color. 

People with lower-income households are also more at risk, as they are less likely to have savings to pay rent and more likely to have been employed in Covid-affected industries. The moratorium aimed to help people like this who needed protection. 

But although politicians like Cori Bush are fighting to bring the moratorium back, it was never a complete solution: Renters would eventually have to start paying again whether their individual circumstances had changed or not, while landlords were also struggling to make ends meet without rental income.

In an attempt to remedy this, Congress allocated $25 billion in rental assistance in December, and in March, another $21.5 billion was added. This was a welcome relief to tenants and landlords alike, but the problem was in getting the money to the people who needed it, quickly. Confusion at the federal level about how to distribute that amount of money, and which of numerous programs would handle distribution, has also slowed getting the aid out. As Vox’s Jerusalem Demsas has reported, many renters in need of aid simply did not know that they were eligible for rent relief, and if they did, some were unable to provide the necessary paperwork because of their turbulent living circumstances, lack of formal documentation of their work, or nontraditional rental agreements. 

Renters were unsure if rent relief money would get to them in time

While more than $1.5 billion was delivered to eligible applicants in the month of June, which exceeded the amount provided in all three previous reporting periods combined, only $3 billion of the total $45 billion allocated has been distributed, according to the US Treasury. Now that the federal moratorium has expired, at least four states — Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, and Oregon — have temporarily continued the ban on evictions against those with a pending rental assistance application. These state decisions will give renters time to receive their rent relief money when they might otherwise face eviction immediately. But renters in states that are following the expired federal moratorium face large sums of back rent, and if they are unable to pay, possible eviction. 

“There’s a lot of cases where tenants are getting evicted that have already been approved for rental assistance,” K’Lisha Rutledge, an attorney with Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas, told the Texas Tribune. “And their landlord knows that they’ve been approved, and they’re just waiting on the check.”

It might be easy to see landlords as the villains in this situation, but tenants aren’t the only ones struggling. Forty-one percent of all rental housing units in the US, and most of the affordable housing options, are owned by individuals, or “mom-and-pop” landlords, and the rent they receive from their tenants is often a large part of their own income. This means that the moratorium alleviated pressure from tenants by creating more pressure on landlords who still need to pay their own bills. 

As Vox’s Jerusalem Demsas wrote:

“Losing more of America’s already dwindling affordable housing stock is a looming emergency that could be exacerbated if small landlords are required to act as the social welfare state without any financial assistance.”

The end of the moratorium potentially means money in landlords’ pockets, but there are still roadblocks. California is allowing landlords to get paid what they are owed from previous months without rent only if they waive 20 percent of the back rent. And some landlords have taken such a hit that they will be forced to sell their property, eliminating the opportunity to continue renting as a future source of income. 

With over 50 percent of the US population vaccinated, it may seem that now is an appropriate time to end the benefits of the moratorium. But Americans who took a financial hit during the peak of Covid-19 or who lost their job may still need support. The rise of the Covid-19 delta variant is also a concern, as research has shown that evictions lead to a higher likelihood of Covid-19 infection and death. 

Concerns about the delta variant were also the main reason for the Biden administration’s push for a moratorium extension. “Given the recent spread of the Delta variant, including among those Americans both most likely to face evictions and lacking vaccinations, President Biden would have strongly supported a decision by the CDC to further extend this eviction moratorium to protect renters at this moment of heightened vulnerability,” the White House said in a statement.

Based on the Supreme Court decision, and absent action from the Biden administration and Congress, this support is not enough. With over $40 billion in rental relief left undistributed, and a threat to public health still looming, renters are in danger once again. 

The assassination of Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise has sent the country into shock and turmoil, sparking discussions in the international community on how to help bring stability. But Haiti’s long history of interventions by foreign powers can’t be ignored, nor can the fact that often, they have been made whether or not Haiti itself benefited. 

On Wednesday, July 7, President Moise was shot 16 times when, Haitian officials allege, a group of “professional killers’’ stormed his home in a suburb located near Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. Prime Minister Claude Joseph assumed leadership and promptly declared a two-week state of siege in the country in an attempt to control rising tensions and violence. However, Joseph’s authority is being questioned by some, because Moise had declared Ariel Henry the new prime minister only two days before his assassination. Henry was meant to be sworn in this past week. Complicating the issue is that Haiti currently has two conflicting constitutions that give different instructions on what to do when the president is no longer in power.

Moise’s hunger for power defined his presidency

Moise himself had a tumultuous presidency beginning in 2017, marked by authoritarian tactics and inability to gain the Haitian people’s trust. Soon after he was elected, Moise revived the nation’s army, disbanded two decades before. This was a controversial decision in a country still dealing with the aftermath of its catastrophic 2010 earthquake, stoking fears that the army would drain already limited resources. Further skepticism came from the army’s history of human rights abuses and the multiple coups it had carried out. The decision to bring the army back set the tone for Moise’s presidency, as he continuously prioritized his interests and power over those of the people. In the absence of a functioning legislature, Haitian law allows the president to rule by decree, and in January 2020, Moise refused to hold parliamentary elections and dismissed all of the country’s elected mayors, consolidating his power.

Further exacerbating problems, in February, Moise refused to leave office despite legal experts and members of an opposition coalition claiming that his term ended on February 7. Moise claimed that his presidency was meant to last until 2022, due to a delay in his inauguration after the 2017 election, and his refusal to step down led to mass anger and frustration culminating in public protests and chants of “no to dictatorship.”

While the identity of the killers has not been confirmed, speculation seems to be determined by party alignment. Moise supporters have stated that he was shot by a predominantly Colombian group of hitmen, while some opposition politicians claim that he was killed by his own guards. Others have said that the Colombians were hired as personal guards to protect Moise from external threats. Fifteen Colombian suspects are currently in custody along with two Haitian-American suspects, and others are still believed to be at large. 

Haiti’s current call for intervention is reminiscent of its past

Moise’s assassination leaves Haiti with an unstable government and an increasingly frustrated population. In addition to the current state of siege implemented by Joseph, Haiti’s interim government has formally asked the US to send security assistance to protect infrastructure including Haiti’s seaport, airport, and gasoline reserves as a precautionary measure. During a briefing Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki offered measured support, saying, “we will be sending senior FBI and DHS officials to Port-au-Prince as soon as possible to assess the situation and how we may be able to assist.”

It remains to be seen how the Biden administration will react, but if US troops are sent to Haiti it could begin to feel like political deja vu. Haiti has a long history of American military intervention.

Foreign intervention in Haiti has often worsened the situation

The United States’ involvement began as early as the 1790s, when it provided support to French colonists in an effort to subdue revolting groups of enslaved Haitians. As the revolution grew, so did US hostility toward Haiti, due to fears that the revolutionary discourse would spread to the enslaved population in the US. And although Haiti gained independence in 1804, the United States did not recognize it as an independent nation until 1862. 

This attitude toward Haiti drastically changed in 1915, after President Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam was assassinated a few months after he entered office due to his authoritarian rule and repressive actions. In the face of heightened turmoil, President Woodrow Wilson sent US Marines into Haiti to build the nation back up and restore political and economic stability. But the military occupation lasted for nearly 20 years, during which time the US controlled parts of the country’s government and finances. In 1917 the Wilson administration tried to force a new constitution onto the Haitian government that would allow foreign land ownership, which had been prohibited as a way to protect domestic resources and prevent foreign powers from taking control. 

A more recent intervention occurred in 1994, when the US sent troops to restore Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the presidency and neutralize a militant group that had overthrown him and taken power. Known as Operation Restore Democracy, the intervention was ultimately successful, since Aristide returned to the presidency, but questions about the longevity of the operation and if US involvement was necessary linger to this day. 

“The intervention in Haiti was a short-lived success,” James Dobbins, a US special envoy to Haiti during the operation, told Time magazine. “Haiti illustrated that these things take a long time — they don’t transform a society overnight.”

In fact, foreign interventions have a record of transforming Haitian society, but not necessarily in a good way. In the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake that struck Haiti and killed over 200,000 people, the United Nations deployed peacekeepers to assist with rebuilding efforts. The following October, sewage from a peacekeeping base contaminated a major water supply, causing a cholera outbreak. In an economy already weakened by the earthquake, and with health and sanitation facilities severely underfunded, the outbreak was disastrous, affecting almost 800,000 Haitians and killing approximately 10,000 people. It took the UN six years to admit its responsibility. 

In the wake of Moise’s assassination, many questions remain about the role of the US, including how to successfully effect long-lasting change. 

Robert Fatton, a Haitian-born historian and political science professor at the University of Virginia, spoke to Time about the harm that international involvement in Haiti has caused. “[After the intervention], Haiti became a country dependent on international financial organizations for its funding, its budget — it was and still is at the mercy of what the international community is willing to give,” he said.

On Friday the Biden administration revealed plans to reinstate environmental protections preventing logging and mining in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, which the Trump administration had discarded. The 17 million acres in southeastern Alaska — the largest national forest in the US — have been a political battleground for over two decades, bouncing back and forth between the interests of logging industries and climate activists. 

In 2001, President Bill Clinton finalized the “roadless rule,” which prohibited road construction on 60 million acres of forested land across the US and heavily restricted commercial logging and mining. But in October of 2020, then-President Donald Trump reversed these protections when he made the Tongass Forest exempt from the rule, doing what many developers and politicians in Alaska had been calling for since the Clinton era. But this reversal didn’t last for long.

The Biden administration vowed to undo damaging policies

Since his time on the campaign trail, President Joe Biden has been vocal about climate action, specifically in contrast with the policies that the Trump administration had passed. After the US, under Trump, left the Paris climate agreement and engineered the largest reduction of protected lands in US history, Biden entered office ready to undo the damage. On the same day Biden was sworn in, on January 20, 2021, he signed an executive order titled “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” which includes goals to reduce climate pollution, and to review and revoke action items set forth by the previous administration.

One of the most notable was the revocation of the March 2019 permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline. The project, begun in 2008 and only officially called off this month, has faced backlash at every stage of its development. Canceled by the Obama administration in 2015, and then renewed in 2017 when Trump invited TC Energy, the pipeline’s Canadian developer, to reapply for a permit, the Keystone XL is a perfect example of the back-and-forth that climate politics can have depending on who is in office. 

The Tongass National Forest is yet another example. From a developer’s perspective, Alaska’s natural resources make it a gold mine. Its old growth forests make it ideal for harvesting timber, its coastal plains are plentiful in prospective drilling sites for oil and natural gas, and developing these opportunities could boost the state’s economy. No specifics as to how the “roadless rule” reversal will be carried out have been announced, apart from the intent to “repeal or replace” it, but Alaskan officials are aware of the economic loss, and have been vocal about the change. 

“The Biden administration’s announcement is an unacceptable whipsaw in federal policy just months after an exhaustively-reviewed final rule was issued by the Trump administration that struck the right balance between conserving the lands we cherish and fostering opportunities for hard-working Alaskans,” Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) said in a joint statement which also included comments from fellow Alaska Republicans Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican, also expressed his disapproval of the Biden action on Twitter and later added, “We will use every tool available to push back on the latest imposition.” 

Biden is currently attending the annual G7 summit, which is meeting this year in Cornwall, England. World leaders are expected to address environmental policy on Sunday.

Effects of logging could be dramatic to the “lungs” of North America

While politicians paint a picture of an oppressive federal government that would deny normal Alaskans access to “jobs and prosperity,” the narrative rings a bit hollow when set against actual feedback from the public. In 2019, the US Forest Service released a summary of over 140,000 comments on the “roadless rule” from the public which overwhelmingly supported the restrictions on forest development. In fact, one of the main points of rationale as to why the public thinks the “roadless rule” should remain was that it is vital to the tourism and fishing industries. 

According to research by an economic development organization called the Southeast Conference, in 2019 Alaska’s timber industry (along with warehousing, utilities, and transport) only provided 4 percent of Alaskans with jobs in contrast to the 18 percent that were employed by tourism. Commercial fishing, tourism, and recreation are the fastest growing job sectors in southeast Alaska, according to the research. The Southeast Conference has not issued an official statement, but its executive director, Robert Venables, joined Gov. Dunleavy’s statement, in which he accused multiple administrations of “playing ping-pong” with Alaskans and the resources of the state.

In addition to providing jobs, as the United States’ largest national forest, the Tongass plays a significant ecological role in absorbing carbon produced in the US. According to National Geographic, the temperate rainforest absorbs approximately 8 percent of the pollution produced in the US. “While tropical rainforests are the lungs of the planet, the Tongass is the lungs of North America,” Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist with the Earth Island Institute’s Wild Heritage project, told the Washington Post. In fact, the United States Geological Survey recently estimated that if no trees were lost through logging and the land were left unmanaged in the Tongass, its carbon storage could increase by up to 27 percent by the end of the century. 

The Tongass is also home to a thriving wildlife population, but Trump’s reversal of the “roadless rule” put this in danger. On land, the state of Alaska is home to 95 percent of America’s brown bear population, and the Tongass specifically contains the highest concentration of brown bears on the planet, while the forest’s 17,000 miles of clean freshwater provide optimal spawning conditions for wild salmon. Due to its high populations, the Tongass is sometimes called a “salmon forest” and, as it produces $60 million of wild salmon annually, this name is not far-fetched. But, if not for the “roadless rule,” this might have changed. Logging around a stream causes runoff like silt or dirt into the water, which can smother developing eggs, while dams, often used to maneuver logs down waterways, disorient the fish and disrupt their natural migratory patterns. 

Damage to the Tongass goes beyond statistics for Alaska Natives

While this is a loss that can affect any Alaskan, to Alaskan Natives, losing wild salmon and the forests that house them means much more than a declining food source. Twenty-three percent of the region’s population comes from the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian tribes, who have been fighting for recognition and for better treatment of their ancestral land which includes the expansive Tongass Forest.

While logging industries threaten food sources, cultural resources like Western red and Alaskan yellow cedar trees, which many communities use to make traditional regalia, baskets, and totem poles, are also threatened. “Cedar is the warp in the basket of who we are as a people. We weave our way around the cedar, keeping ourselves connected, strong and able to carry the tools and resources forward for the next generation,” Marina Anderson, a Haida and Tlingit woman who serves as the tribal administrator of the Organized Village of Kasaan, said in an article for Juneau Empire. 

Anderson recently helped to organize a workshop on cultural uses of forest resources, taught by Native Alaskans, for employees of the United States Forest Service (USFS). For years, the USFS has provided manufacturers with commercial timber from the Tongass without communication with Native populations. The workshop aimed to teach USFS workers how to distinguish different types of trees that can be used to make canoes and totem poles, or trees that are rare and should be protected. While this type of cross-cultural exchange does not target the heavy hitters of industry or politics, it does make an impact on the people carrying out the work.

In March 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States’ top federal infectious disease expert, quickly became a character of contention whose audience was clearly split by political alignment. He was either known as a reliable source or a “disaster.” Much of the criticism he received was directly in line with the Trump administration’s scorn for health protocols and skepticism of safety measures like closed infrastructure and mandatory masking. 

And although a majority of Americans today have received at least one vaccine dose and are ready to let all Covid-19-related news go, Fauci is once again under fire. 

Through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by various news outlets, thousands of Fauci’s personal and work emails from as early as March 2020 were released to BuzzFeed and the Washington Post. Within hours of this release, #FauciLeaks and #FauciGate were trending on Twitter, in an onslaught of social media conspiracy theories from Covid-19 deniers using the emails as proof that they were right all along. To be clear, no emails were leaked; they were obtained through access granted under federal law.

Apart from countless false claims about the virus and a habit of downplaying its public health risks, the Trump administration created a narrative in which everyday activities could and should continue. In October 2020, Vox’s Aaron Rupar wrote:

“Not only is Trump’s rhetoric irresponsible, but the fact is, he’s holding rallies that make a mockery of social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines recommended by his own government. And these rallies appear to be actively making the pandemic worse by spreading the virus.” 

Even with Trump out of office, the country remains heavily polarized, and Trump’s influence on public discourse has proven long-lasting. According to the Washington Post, “to Trump supporters, [Fauci] was a contrarian who seemed to undermine the president at every turn, while others viewed him as a reassuring voice of reason.” This pent-up aggression is part of what made the email release such a big deal. The email release gave conservatives an opportunity to get an inside look at the person they have made a scapegoat, and to cherrypick the fodder they needed to spread false information. 

Countless Trump-supporting Republican politicians have taken advantage of the moment to stoke resentment and fill their coffers. Among them, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has been a leading figure in helping to spread misinformation about the Fauci emails. On June 3 he tweeted “FAUCI has been lying” and included a link to his fundraising website.

This isn’t the first time social media has blown something Covid-19-related out of proportion or helped to spread misinformation. So what did those emails actually say that conservatives have latched onto?

Anti-maskers have been looking for proof that masks don’t work

One of the biggest points of contention throughout the pandemic, especially among right-leaning Americans, has been the mandate to wear masks. One email that addresses this has been held up as evidence that Fauci knew that masks were ineffective and prescribed them anyway.

In early February of 2020, Fauci received an email from a woman asking if she should wear a mask while traveling. He responded on February 5, “masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection. The typical mask you buy at a drugstore is not really effective in keeping out virus.” 

In February and early March of 2020, anything Covid-19-related was unclear even to health professionals, and a leading line of discourse was that Americans should not wear masks because they weren’t thought to be effective in screening out viral particles shed by others. While that information continues to be believed accurate — except in the case of hospital-grade masks, the N95 and KN95 face mask respirators, which have a much higher efficacy — it was eventually found that encouraging everyone to wear masks helped to prevent the actively infected from spreading the shed viral particles as easily to others.

There was also an effort to keep the panic-driven public from buying all available masks and putting health care workers at risk of running out of supplies. In an interview on June 12 with The Street, Fauci said, “the public health community — and many people were saying this — were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply.” 

During a June 3 CNN interview addressing the emails, Fauci reiterated that if he had all the information he had today, his advice from early in the pandemic would be drastically different, and that masks do in fact work.

But it doesn’t look like Fauci’s explanation will ease the backlash. After a year and a half of anti-mask protests, it’s being treated as an “I told you so” moment for conservative Americans, and they are making the most of it.

As more and more Americans get vaccinated, there will be a decline in mask-wearing, but interestingly, it will likely remain a political symbol. As Vox’s Anna North reported, “when people like Trump don’t wear masks and make wearing masks a political issue, their supporters are less likely to wear them.” It follows that when people like Fauci do wear a mask and are involved in suggesting rules about wearing them, these same people will be waiting for an opportunity to prove him wrong. 

The Wuhan lab leak conspiracy theory

Trump infamously referred to Covid-19 as the “Chinese virus,” a statement which has led to more hate directed against Asian people. Sixty percent of all adults believe that discrimination against Asian Americans has increased compared to last year, according to an AP poll conducted between April 29 and May 3. Trump’s choice of wording has also led to false accusations, such as his claim that the coronavirus was created in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology and intentionally spread to the rest of the world. Few reputable sources, Fauci included, believe this is likely.

But if anything, this heightened reaction to one of the released emails, titled “Thank you for your public comments re COVID-19’s origins”. The email, from Peter Daszak, the CEO of a nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance, which had been studying the origins of the coronavirus and had worked with the Wuhan viral lab in the past, reads, “I just wanted to say a personal thank you on behalf of our staff and collaborators, for publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin for COVID-19 from a bat-to-human spillover, not a lab release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” 

Fauci also received an email from Kristian Andersen, a professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research, which suggested that the virus could potentially be engineered. Anderson wrote: “The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome, so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered.” 

Similar to the mask-related emails, these emails played into narratives that Republican politicians and their supporters had been perpetuating since the start of the pandemic. According to Politico, “Theories about a leak from the Wuhan virology lab became a consistent line of questioning for Republican lawmakers by last spring and soon turned into a mainstay of congressional hearings and increasingly contentious exchanges between Fauci and [Sen. Rand] Paul.”

In April 2020, Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, sent Fauci an email with the subject line “Conspiracy gains momentum.” Other than a link to an article about the possibilities of Covid-19 being created in a lab, the message is fully redacted. This specific email has become a lightning rod because of the redaction, and has spurred a belief among conspiracy theorists that Fauci may be under investigation. In fact, on June 4, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) sent a letter to President Joe Biden demanding an investigation into whether Fauci was involved in an alleged coverup of the virus’ potential origins.

In his CNN interview on June 3, Fauci restated that he still believes the most likely origin of Covid-19 is “a jumping of species,” but said he is committed to keeping an open mind, and recommended others do the same. 

Conservative Americans want to discredit Fauci whether it makes sense or not

Amid all the confusion and frustration that the pandemic has prompted, many Americans are looking for someone to blame. Everyone has suffered, whether from losing a loved one to the virus, getting laid off, or simply a canceled trip. 

While many liberals blame Trump’s erratic speeches and refusal to follow health guidelines for a failed response to the virus, these are the same people who are more likely to read the emails and feel bolstered in their support by the inside look at Fauci’s work.

On the other hand, for many conservatives, Fauci has been an obstruction, or worse, a villain set on upending the Trump agenda. His advice to stay at home, stay distanced, and wear a mask got in the way of Trump’s messaging about reopening the economy and getting back to normal. 

Fauci’s emails, if anything, have affirmed how divided the country remains. On Sunday, CBS News released a poll in which 33 percent of Republicans, but just 10 percent of Democrats, say they won’t get the vaccine when it becomes available to them, a potential lingering influence of Trump’s rhetoric. Interestingly, according to the same poll, six in 10 of those who say they won’t get vaccinated also say that mask mandates and social distancing requirements aren’t effective in controlling the spread of the virus, which further aligns with this rhetoric. As Vox’s Zeeshan Aleem has reported,

Throughout his presidency, Trump ignored and downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic, and spread misinformation and disinformation about Covid-19. That in turn has contributed to distrust in the vaccine or beliefs that Covid-19 simply isn’t a serious issue among many of his supporters.

Fauci’s released emails have garnered a lot of attention and criticism, but as of June 5, 50 percent of Americans have had at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. The emails, then, are merely a retrospective glance back to the beginning of the pandemic, and not so much the “gotcha” moment that some believe.

People, you may have heard, are eager for a hot vax summer. After more than a year of feeling hemmed in, vaccinated humans are ready to be around each other, hugging, beaching, laughing, sunshine on their (maybe maskless) faces. But there’s a portion of the worldwide population that still doesn’t have access to the vaccine, who has also endured a stressful year of adjustments and change. Teens are just as eager for a summer that resembles “normal” as anyone else — but will they have one?

Since the CDC has only approved Covid-19 vaccination for people aged 16 years and older, many high school students in the US haven’t been inoculated yet. And around the world, different rollout plans and accessibility means that many countries have yet to finish vaccinating their more at-risk populations, leaving teenagers with no visible opportunity to get the jab. 

But this doesn’t guarantee another summer of at-home workouts and viral TikTok recipes. In the US, the expedited rollout means that even kids who are too young to get vaccinated can enjoy more freedom since their parents and older relatives will be inoculated, lessening worry of transferring the virus. Internationally, this varies, but many EU countries have recently nearly doubled the pace of vaccination after an increase in supplies. 

This is good news for high school students, because teens need this summer. The past year and a half has seen a combination of lockdowns, online school, home school, and various hybrid models. Combined with heightened isolation, stress, and a lack of social interaction, this has made many high school students feel like they’ve missed out on important experiences, something that can hopefully be made up for by activities and gatherings planned for outside.

“Because of the contextual layers of the pandemic, like the limitations on our ability to connect, students are feeling more burnt out than ever,” Elizabeth Aranda, a psychologist at the University of California Berkeley, told Vox. “They are feeling disconnected because it takes more energy to reach out through the computer rather than just running into each other after class.”

Many teens are cautiously optimistic that the seasonal break may alleviate that heaviness and isolation. “We want to do so many cool things that we didn’t get to do over the past year and a half and take advantage of so many opportunities, but there’s also that teen anxiety of like, ‘I don’t want to be the first one to do it. I don’t want to be the person to break the bubble and put myself back out there,’” said Jasper Byrne, of Richmond, California, who’ll be a senior in the fall.

I spoke with four high school students who are looking forward to spending this summer seeing friends, doing college prep, and regaining a sense of normalcy. Our conversations have been edited and condensed for clarity.

“I’m really looking forward to being less stressed and more free”

Lily Vaughn, 14, Georgetown, Texas 

My mom’s a teacher, so she got her vaccine pretty early on and my dad just got his second dose like a week ago, so I can finally do stuff with some of my friends. They’ve started the trials for the vaccine on kids my age, and a couple of my friends have participated, but I have asthma so I haven’t been able to — otherwise I would jump right on that. When we first went into lockdown in March last year, I did not leave my house at all. My parents didn’t want to risk it, so we were really careful. I think I’ve sat inside of a restaurant like four times since then.

I’m a cheerleader, and since I’m joining high school in the fall, I have to do a cheer camp this summer to prepare for the team. It’s really exciting because it’s at Texas A&M, so I’ll stay in the dorms with my friends. More than anything, it’s supposed to be a good bonding experience for the whole team — we haven’t been able to do events like that in so long. High schools from all around the area attend, and then at the end there’s a competition and the best team gets a blue ribbon. It’s a big tradition in the cheer world, so I’m so excited that they found ways to be safe instead of canceling it like so many other things. 

This summer, I also might drive to San Diego with my parents and my brother and maybe check out some colleges there because that’s where my parents are from. I’ve been wanting to go for years, so this summer would be the perfect time. Overall, I’m really looking forward to being less stressed and more free, like I can do things without having to worry about school and grades or Covid as much. 

“I have a lot of plans to write short stories … because I haven’t had time recently”

Lazuardi Choiri Imani, 17, Sumbawa, Indonesia

The environment in Sumbawa is very normal — too normal — because people don’t take Covid seriously enough. My family and I are still low on the priority list to get vaccinated, so it will still be a while for us. My neighbor, some of my family members, and my high school teacher have all gotten Covid. Some people wear masks but they don’t fear it enough and we go in and out of lockdown all the time. 

In school, it’s very amusing because it happens often where we go to school for three days, and then the next three days we do online learning because of a new lockdown. I’ve sometimes woken up late and started preparing to leave the house until I remember that it’s an online learning day. But it’s also very tiring and frustrating especially because I have been preparing for my university entrance tests. So I’m excited for the summer when I will be done with high school and looking forward to becoming a freshman in the fall. 

This summer, I have a lot of plans to write short stories because I have loved to write since I was in elementary school and I haven’t had time recently. I really like science fiction and I have a lot of ideas in mind. For example, I watch a lot of criminal shows like CSI and I’ve even written fanfiction about being on a crime show or an investigative team. 

I will also be working for the public relations department for the Young Researchers of Indonesia. I got the job because I did some research last year about the language of Sumbawa, which is Sumbawarese. The language will be extinct soon if we don’t save it starting now and there are a lot of problems that happen in the process of protecting it.

This summer we have a lot planned. We work under the Ministry of Education, so we’ll train young people how to start their own research projects in Indonesia.

“There’s also that teen anxiety of like, ‘I don’t want to be the person to break the bubble and put myself back out there’”

Jasper Byrne, 17, Richmond, California

To me, the theme of this summer is making back lost time. March 2020 was the last time I was physically in school so I missed out on a year and a half of time with classmates and teachers so there’s a big opportunity this summer to reverse that.

I think a lot of people my age have positive energy going into this summer, but it’s not always easy to show that. Almost all the kids in my class that I’ve spoken to about this echo the same thing: This summer is going to be super important. We want to do so many cool things that we didn’t get to do over the past year and a half and take advantage of so many opportunities, but there’s also that teen anxiety of like, “I don’t want to be the first one to do it. I don’t want to be the person to break the bubble and put myself back out there.” 

I’ll be getting my second dose of Pfizer in May and I got my license recently, so I’m looking forward to maybe going on some road trips with friends or up to a national park or just exploring because I’ve missed out on all those opportunities for like a year and a half so I want to get them back over the summer. Usually during the summer, I’m big on video games and I stay inside a lot, but there’s so many other things I could be doing. I have a lot more freedom now and I can go places and see people and that’s a big contrast from the closed-off Zoom experience I’ve had for so long. 

“I’ll have time to just take a bit of a break”

Lea Moutault, 17, Brussels, Belgium

A lot of people online talk about lockdown and how it’s so boring and they just don’t have anything to do, but that’s genuinely been the opposite for me. I’ll be graduating soon and it’s been so stressful with deadlines and going back and forth from hybrid high school to online school, so I’m looking forward to the summer when I’ll have time to just take a bit of a break.

My parents and I haven’t been vaccinated yet since Belgium is still focusing on the high-risk population, but we should all get it by June. The thing I’m most excited for post-vaccination is being able to just do different activities like going to the cinema or summer fairs because we’ve been so limited in almost all the leisure activities that we can do. It feels kind of decadent to be focusing on that when there’s obviously so much worse that a lot of people are struggling with, but I’m really looking forward to those kinds of restrictions being relaxed a bit over the summer. 

I do worry about how equal vaccination rollout is going to be around the world because especially with tensions between the UK and mainland Europe, we’ve been seeing unequal distribution of vaccines. I think that’s really harmful, especially if we want to live in a world where we can travel, and we can’t have that if there are countries that aren’t vaccinated yet, or just shut off. I think that is concerning, but it’ll get better with new vaccine improvements.