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President Joe Biden recently pledged to donate 500 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to developing countries over the coming year. The European Union also promised 100 million doses. The announcement is welcomed news. The fight against COVID-19 is a tale of two worlds. In the United States, case counts have plummeted to the lowest level since March 2020, thanks to plentiful vaccines. Well over half the population has now received at least one vaccine dose. (Democratic former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, 6/25)

From the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans have been yearning for the bygone life they once took for granted. But many of those most impatient to return to normal have been the least willing to help us get there. First, some people refused to wear masks. Now, some — often the same ones — balk at getting vaccinated. This resistance is behind a lawsuit filed by eight students against Indiana University, which is requiring all students, faculty and staff at all campuses to be inoculated against the virus for the fall semester. The school says exceptions will be “extremely limited,” covering only those with religious objections or certain medical conditions. (Steve Chapman, 6/27)

"China lied and Americans died." With those words, Elise Stefanik, the number three Republican in the House of Representatives, showed her party's plan to put the origins of the pandemic at the center of next year's midterm elections. Republicans are calling on Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to hold hearings on whether the virus was naturally transmitted from animals to humans or leaked out of a lab in Wuhan in China. They want to paint Democrats as defending the ruling Chinese Communist Party by not being more active in punishing Beijing for the virus. (Stephen Collinson, 6/27)

Early in this century, post-SARS, and in a period when China started allowing more students and scientists to study abroad, collaboration and exchange between American and Chinese scientists blossomed. Many of China’s top scientists today were educated in the West. These include George Gao, the head of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, who trained and taught at Oxford and Harvard; and Shi Zhengli, who directs the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and received her PhD in France. (Elizabeth Rosenthal, 6/27)

Ravaged by Covid-19, India is desperately trying to contain a pandemic that has infected nearly 30 million people and claimed — officially — nearly 400,000 lives. Others put the toll closer to 4 million deaths. Medical teams, traumatized by their experiences, recently called it a “a war zone.” In April, doctors and other clinicians working in a hospital in Gurgaon were attacked by family members after patients died of Covid-19, likely from lack of oxygen. A few weeks afterward, they hid in the canteen to avoid a repeat assault. (Lipi Roy, Reshma Gupta and Bhavna Lall, 6/26)

As someone who has tested positive for Covid-19 in both Britain and Hong Kong, I've experienced the worst of both worlds. In one, I fell victim to the complete failure to check the disease's spread, and in the other I got caught up in a zealous system intended to completely eradicate Covid-19. (Pauline Lockwood, 6/27)

Among the unseen victims of COVID-19’s ravages are the legions of foster children for whom basic services and support were for months suspended. Financial, emotional, educational, social and even some basic housing issues were pushed aside; the foster care system itself was overwhelmed by virus-related court closures and delays. Mental health care, so critical for young foster children, was confined often to calls or Zoom meetings. Uncertainty about the future, always a reality in the system, became the coin of the realm. Chicago saw a 33 percent increase in the number of children entering foster care. States like California, Kansas and Florida meanwhile, noted decreases in reports of child abuse—a chilling reminder of what can happen when watchful eyes no longer are present. A CDC report also noted fewer child abuse-related emergency department visits during the pandemic. “It’s not that it is happening less,” says Moisés Barón, CEO of the San Diego Center for Children. “It’s just that there are fewer mandated reporters interacting with the youth.” (Carolyn Barber, 6/27)