| 1 big thing: The new mask logic
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Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios
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We're about to have to mask up again, in a lot more
places. The Biden administration is essentially asking vaccinated
Americans to help save the unvaccinated from themselves. America's "pandemic of the unvaccinated"
has gotten bad enough that vaccine mandates are starting to catch on,
and masks are coming back — increasingly for the vaccinated, Axios
Caitlin Owens writes. - Vaccinated people's risk
of serious illness is still extremely low. The problem is that there
are simply too many unvaccinated Americans. That's taking a toll on the
whole country, and vaccinated people will be asked to shoulder some of
that burden.
- "[T]he honor system isn’t working," tweeted emergency physician Leana Wen.
Driving the news: The CDC announced yesterday that vaccinated Americans living in areas with high COVID transmission — about 63% of U.S. counties — should once again wear masks indoors. - At the Capitol, the
Office of the Attending Physician advised both House members and
senators: "For the Congress, representing a collection of individuals
traveling weekly from various risk areas, ... all individuals should
wear a well-fitted, medical-grade filtration mask (for example an ear
loop surgical mask or a KN95 mask) when they are in an interior space
and other individuals are present."
- At the White House, staff will now be required to wear masks indoors, even if they're vaccinated.
Between the lines: New
evidence suggests that some "breakthrough" cases — vaccinated people
contracting COVID — might be more contagious than initially thought,
according to the CDC. - That's the main point of
bringing back masks for vaccinated people: Reduce the risk that a
breakthrough infection will infect an unvaccinated person, who still
risks serious illness or death.
Tuesday's mask guidance was all about reducing transmissibility, even though breakthrough infections are rare, a Biden official told Axios.
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2. Understanding the unvaccinated
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Data: Axios/Ipsos. Chart: Sara Wise/Axios The most hardcore COVID shot opponents — who say they'll never get one — tend to be older, white and more Republican, Axios managing editor Margaret Talev writes from our Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index. We examined data from the five most recent waves of our national survey, from May through last week, comprising 5,232 U.S. adults. - Seven in 10 respondents said they'd taken the vaccine. The group we wanted to understand was the remaining 30%. (That mirrors the CDC tracker, which shows 69.1% of U.S. adults have at least one shot.)
- About half of the unvaccinated haven't ruled it out.
- The rest — a little more than half of all unvaccinated respondents — said they're not at all likely to get vaccinated.
Roughly half of the people in the most persuadable group are Black or Hispanic. The most resistant group is overwhelmingly white. - The dug-in opponents also identify more solidly as Republican, and are disproportionately concentrated in the South.
Between the lines: Two additional themes unite those most resistant to being vaccinated. - They're most likely to
say they don't consume traditional mainstream news. And they're most
likely to distrust institutions and authority figures, including the
CDC, President Biden and state governments.
What we're watching:
Parents with children at home were disproportionately likely to resist
taking the vaccine themselves — a potential complication to efforts to
increase child vaccination rates.
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3. National parks "drowning in tourists"
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Data: National Park Service. Chart: Connor Rothschild/Axios National parks across the U.S. are
overflowing with a post-pandemic crush of tourists, leading to
congestion, traffic jams and increased damage to the parks, Axios'
Alayna Treene reports. - Why it matters: Some
are seeing such a record number that they're being forced to limit, and
even close, access to certain areas to avoid the danger of eroding the
land. The result, ultimately, could change the way Americans interact
with the parks.
Members of Congress are hoping to draw more attention to the issue — and look 10 years ahead — by hosting a public hearing today.
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4. Female Olympians push back against double standards
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Pauline Schaefer-Betz of Germany competes on the balance beam. Photo: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images
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Female Olympians in Tokyo are rejecting uniforms
that have long defined their sports, highlighting a double standard in
how women dress in competition vs. men, Axios' Ivana Saric and Ina Fried
write. - During their qualifying round,
Germany's women's gymnastics team wore full-length unitards, eschewing
the conventional leg-baring leotards worn by most female gymnasts.
- Norway's women's beach handball team was fined for wearing shorts instead of the required bikini bottoms during a match.
- The International Handball Federation permits
male beach handball players to wear shorts as long as four inches above
their knees, but requires women to wear bikini bottoms "with a close
fit and cut on an upward angle toward the top of the leg."
- Keep reading.
 For the second day in a row, the biggest story in Tokyo is Simone Biles, who won't compete in the women’s gymnastics all-around finals after pulling out of the team finals yesterday for mental health reasons.
- Biles has drawn widespread praise for her decision to prioritize her well-being, including from Michael Phelps and Michelle Obama.
 Axios' Olympics dashboard ... Events to watch today ... Live medal tracker.
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5. "OK guys, apparently the tip of the spear has entered the Capitol"
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The
four officers — from left, Aquilino Gonell, Michael Fanone, Harry Dunn
and Daniel Hodges — after their emotional testimony yesterday. Photo:
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.),
chair of the House committee investigating the Capitol riot, set the
scene for yesterday's emotional opening hearing by saying: [W]hile
our institutions endured, and while Joe Biden is the legitimately
elected president of the United States, a peaceful transfer of power
didn’t happen this year. It did not happen. Let that sink in. Think
about it. Before the tearful testimony by four
officers who survived the siege, Thompson cued up a video of scenes from
Jan. 6, much of it from officers' bodycams — plus audio of "rioters'
internal communications." The chair warned of "graphic images and strong
language." - Even after all we've seen, it
was still stunning to watch the crunch of a protester trying to break an
officer's riot shield, and a masked officer — desperately trying to
hold back the mob — saying: "You're gonna kill me, man. Hey, you're
gonna kill me."
- As the insurrectionists battered their way into the House chamber, members were instructed: "Take off your pins."
Watch the video. ... Read, see clips of the officers' testimony.
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6. Why Mark Zuckerberg is going meta
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Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photo: Michaela Handrek-Rehle/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Facebook's next chapter, Mark Zuckerberg says, is to
be prime builder of "the metaverse" — an open, broadly distributed, 3D
dimension online where, he says, we will all conduct much of our work
and personal lives, Axios managing editor Scott Rosenberg writes from the Bay Area. - Between the lines:
Zuckerberg thinks Facebook missed the boat by not becoming the owner of
its own smartphone ecosystem, the way Apple and Google did. He doesn't
want to make that mistake again.
The vision, as Zuckerberg described in an interview with Casey Newton, is of virtually "teleporting" via a headset or AR glasses: - "You can think about the metaverse as an embodied internet, where instead of just viewing content — you are in it."
- "And you feel present
with other people as if you were in other places, having different
experiences that you couldn’t necessarily do on a 2D app or webpage,
like dancing ... or different types of fitness."
Keep reading.
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7.  Walmart to pay for worker schooling
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Walmart, the nation's largest private employer,
announced it'll pay 100% of employees' college tuition and books at a
group of schools, as part of a $1 billion, five-year investment in
career-driven training, per USA Today. - Why it matters: It's
part of the escalating efforts by employers to stand out by increasing
wages and benefits amid a shortage of workers, particularly in retail
and restaurants, Reuters notes.
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8. 1 food thing: Rise of detox dining
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
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Cafes and fine-dining establishments alike are
offering to take away your phone so you can unplug, enjoy the meal and
actually talk to each other, Axios' Erica Pandey reports. - The digital detox is likely to become even more popular as people emerge from months of digital overload.
The James NoMad hotel
in Manhattan experimented with a Digital Detox package that gave guests
10% off the room rate for every night they went without phones, MarketWatch reports. - Guests gave their phones to the front desk when they checked in and were assigned device-free rooms without TVs or alarm clocks.
Some places are trying lighter versions: Fergie's Pub, a Philadelphia bar, has done away with TVs. - Several coffee shops stopped offering WiFi, calling it an effort to discourage device use.
Flashback: Everything old is new again. In 1999 — 22 years ago — the New York Times ran an article about excessive cell phone use driving restaurants to ask phone users to step outside to gab. - That, of course, was when people actually used phones to talk.
Share this story.
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