Latest / Apple News Today / COVID vaccines for toddlers are close. Here’s what to know.

Transcript

COVID vaccines for toddlers are close. Here’s what to know. · Apple News Today

• 0:00
  [MUSIC FADES IN]
• 0:01
  Mark Garrison, Narrating: Good morning! It's Thursday, June 16th. I'm Mark Garrison in for Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news, and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
• 0:02
  We could have COVID vaccines for our youngest kids as soon as Tuesday. Yesterday, a panel of FDA advisers voted to recommend Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for children as young as six months old. Typically, the FDA follows the recommendation and the CDC accepts it.
• 0:03
  [MUSIC FADES OUT]
• 0:04
  Matthew Herper: It's a big jump forward to making these vaccines available for younger kids.
• 0:05
  Matthew Herper is a senior writer at the medical news outlet "Stat." He told us how the panel's vote was unanimous, but there was still lots of debate among the experts.
• 0:06
  Herper: There were a few members who said, look, we're looking at a relatively small number of deaths with a very large number kids. And it looks like it's possible that most children have had COVID at this point.
• 0:07
  But many on the panel said the danger to young children is bigger than many people realize. One in a thousand kids have been hospitalized. There have been more than 400 deaths, making COVID a leading cause of death in young kids. Supporters had other reasons too.
• 0:08
  Herper: They point out that there are people for whom fear of COVID, either because they have someone at home or just because they're people who are particularly concerned about it, has meant that kids are socially isolated. So fixing that is a very big deal. And for a lot of people having access to this vaccine will mean that they can return to more normal life.
• 0:09
  Herper explains a key change that doctors and parents will have to understand.
• 0:10
  Herper: The two vaccines are different because of some dosing decisions they both made. They're more different than we're used to the Moderna vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine being.
• 0:11
  The Moderna shot appears to provide some protection after two doses. The Pfizer version seems to need three. Some parents have wondered why it's taken so long for the approval. But all that aside, it seems to be just days away. And parents should know, this may be a more complicated decision than adults face, as far as which vaccine is right for kids, so it's a moment where families should talk with their doctors and consider their options.
• 0:12
  [PENSIVE MUSIC]
• 0:13
  [MUSIC FADES OUT]
• 0:14
  The U.K. government is under fire for a new immigration policy. It would deport some asylum seekers who enter the country illegally all the way to Rwanda. Critics say it's wrong to send people so far, to a country accused of human rights abuses. Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the policy will discourage people from paying human smugglers to take them through potentially deadly waters, and he's fired back at opponents…
• 0:15
  [START SKY NEWS ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:16
  Boris Johnson: They are, I'm afraid, undermining everything that we're trying to do to support safe and legal routes for people to come to the U.K. and to oppose the illegal and dangerous routes.
• 0:17
  [END SKY NEWS ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:18
  The "Wall Street Journal's" Max Colchester is on the story. He says the policy is meant to sound harsh.
• 0:19
  Max Colchester: Sending abroad hundreds and potentially thousands of people to a different country, and not allowing them to then return ever, is a pretty draconian move. And I think the U.K. government is touting this as a world first. So it is definitely out there, in terms of immigration policies, and I think that's what it's intended to do. It's there to make a statement to say to people smugglers "You're not welcome and it won't work."
• 0:20
  We also asked him about the political context. These moves come at a difficult time for Johnson.
• 0:21
  Colchester: He's recently just survived a rebellion in his own Conservative Party, where a large chunk of his own lawmakers voted to get rid of him. He's now desperately trying to shore up the more conservative side of his party, and doing this kind of thing as a way of playing to that base and proving that he is tough on issues like immigration. And this is something they want to see.
• 0:22
  A court blocked a plane this week that was gonna deport the first group of migrants. But the U.K. government isn't backing down, saying another flight's in the works. Rwanda has gotten a first payment equivalent to around $150 million for its role. In the U.K., a diverse coalition is opposing the deportations.
• 0:23
  Colchester: There are many people, including church leaders, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury here, who've decried this policy as inhumane and that it goes against the essential values of tolerance and acceptance that the U.K. has long espoused, so it's really become a flash point here.
• 0:24
  The legal fight is happening on multiple fronts. Next month, a U.K. court is scheduled to rule on whether the policy is legal.
• 0:25
  [CONTEMPLATIVE MUSIC]
• 0:26
  College in this country is expensive, but we're told it's worth it. Jacqui Germain has a story about student loans in "Teen Vogue."
• 0:27
  [MUSIC FADES OUT]
• 0:28
  Jacqui Germain: Millions of people have believed that social contract and taken on thousands of dollars of debt believing that the college experience would allow them to, not only account for the debt but also build a life for themselves, become homeowners, you know, start a family, all those sorts of things that are supposedly part of this American ideal.
• 0:29
  Her piece focuses on people who take on debt to attend college but don't graduate.
• 0:30
  Germain: You're having people come out of college with so much debt that they're not able to start their lives, and you're having people come out of the experience of having debt and sometimes having no degree to show for it.
• 0:31
  Of the 43 million people in the U.S. with student loan debt, nearly 40% of them don't have college degrees. That's more than 16 million people. Juan Ramiro is one of them. He had a scholarship, but still needed loans to cover the bills. In Ramiro's last year of school, Trump changed deportation guidelines. His mother was undocumented, he had to help her get back to Mexico. So, Ramiro became the family's main breadwinner and had to leave school. Now he's around $29,000 in debt, but with no degree.
• 0:32
  Germain: One of the things that I thought was really interesting that I appreciated him sharing was the amount of shame that he carried for being the first in his family to attempt to go to college, and, you know, having all of these things that he felt like he did right ahead of time, all of these things that he, you know, had been able to figure it out to set up this experience for himself, and still not being able to have a degree at the end of it.
• 0:33
  Millions of people like Ramiro now face the reality of paying off debt without a degree that could help them get better-paying jobs. None of the students who spoke to Germain said they regretted attending college. Some think about going back to finish, but some aren't convinced that racking up even more debt is worth it.
• 0:34
  [PLODDING MUSIC]
• 0:35
  It's been three years since rapper Nipsey Hussle was shot and killed in L.A. This week, the trial began for his accused killer, who's pleaded not guilty. We're not gonna talk about the murder case this morning. We're focused on something that may not come up much in court: Hussle's life, as an entrepreneur and anti-violence advocate, and his impact. After he was killed, he received BET's humanitarian award and the Grammy for "Best Rap Performance."
• 0:36
  [MUSIC FADES OUT]
• 0:37
  [START LOUDER THAN A RIOT ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:38
  Rodney Carmichael: In the aftermath of his death, he achieved what few rappers do. He became larger than life.
• 0:39
  [END LOUDER THAN A RIOT ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:40
  That's Rodney Carmichael, who explored Hussle's legacy in the NPR Music podcast, "Louder Than A Riot." Hussle grew up without much money. He joined a gang at 14. He says everybody he ran with then ended up in prison. Something changed for him a few years later. He told "The Breakfast Club" about visiting his immigrant father's homeland of Eritrea.
• 0:41
  [START THE BREAKFAST CLUB ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:42
  Nipsey Hussle: I ended up spending 90 days out there, you know, and it changed my life and changed my perspective on a lot of things.
• 0:43
  [END THE BREAKFAST CLUB ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:44
  Hussle says he saw people who looked like him living together and thriving, proudly. It inspired him to go home and help his community. He advocated for Black people to own businesses, he built spaces for kids, and he tried to improve relations between the community and police. But law enforcement was hesitant to partner with someone who had a gang background. Still, he kept at it. Just before Hussle was set to meet with the chief of police, he was killed outside the Marathon Clothing Store, which he founded. He was 33 years old. Here's Carmichael again…
• 0:45
  [START LOUDER THAN A RIOT ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:46
  Rodney Carmichael: There's a lot of injustice around Nipsey's murder. I mean, he was taken out on the same block that he was trying to build up, just one day before he was scheduled to meet with the LAPD about working together to stop violence in his hood.
• 0:47
  [END LOUDER THAN A RIOT ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 0:48
  Some 20,000 people attended his memorial in L.A. President Obama called Nipsey Hussle's life "a legacy worth celebrating." The album he put out before his death was called "Victory Lap"…
• 0:49
  [MUSIC - "GRINDING ALL MY LIFE" BY NIPSEY HUSSLE]
• 0:50
  "Sacrificed, hustled, paid the price." Nipsey Hussle packed a lot into his lyrics, and his life from beginning to end is in that line. You can get NPR's full telling of Hussle's story in the Apple News app, along with all the stories we mentioned today. You'll also find coverage of the next public hearing of the January 6th committee, starting today at 1pm Eastern. It's expected to focus on Trump's effort to pressure former Vice President Pence to overturn the election. We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
• 0:51
  [MUSIC FADES OUT]
• 0:52
  [MUSIC FADES IN]
• 0:53
  [MUSIC FADES OUT]