Plus: Streaming queue looking a bit sparse? Our critic picks three shows for you to start this weekend.
The COVID-19 Outbreak
(DeAgostini / Getty / Katie Martin / The Atlantic)
This week, America hit its latest vaccination roadblock: The Johnson & Johnson offering remains on pause in the United States as regulators investigate six cases of a rare blood-clotting disorder in recently vaccinated people, all women under 50.
The good news is that the company’s shots make up only a small percent of those being administered nationally. The bad news is that the pause threatens to undermine vaccine confidence—and exacerbate existing inequities.
J&J risks becoming a “dudes only” vaccine.It’s too early to tell whether there’s a link between the clots and sex or gender, our staff writer Katherine J. Wu reminds us.
mRNA vaccines are looking particularly good right now.Once long shots, they are emerging as a technological triumph. But while “the U.S. can afford, literally, to vaccinate most of its population with Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines,” our staff writer Sarah Zhang writes, “most other countries cannot.”
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Three shows to start this weekend
Struggling to find new worthwhile streaming picks this far into the pandemic? I asked Shirley Li, a staff writer who covers television, to select three shows for you to start this weekend. She chose:
1. Younger (Paramount+, Hulu)
The Darren Star–helmed comedy is “a fairy tale fit for basic cable” and “a treacly confection of a show: witty but not wise, delightful but not deep,” Megan Garber wrote back in 2016. The first four episodes from the final season begin streaming yesterday.
The space-race drama returned for a second season earlier this year. It stars Joel Kinnaman, who plays “a character so wholesome and uncontaminated you could put him on a cereal box.”
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