Covid vaccinations are falling, and not for good reasons

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a pharmacy of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Vaccines are [almost magical](. - The rich [could cool it just a bit](. - Maybe [this is Peak Earnings](. - Nobody’s [riding the subway](. These Vaccines Aren’t Just Gonna Sell Themselves If you are a) a parent and b) enjoy the outdoors, then maybe you know the dilemma of wanting to send your kids into the woods but worrying they’ll come back covered in deadly ticks. If so, then it should infuriate you to learn/remember that medical science once delivered us a perfectly viable Lyme disease vaccine, but hazy [anxiety]( about side effects killed consumer demand and then the vaccine. So the ticks still rule the forests. Vaccine hesitancy almost certainly won’t kill Covid vaccines. But it’s probably making it harder to fight Covid. Here’s a [chart]( from David Leonhardt of the New York Times: And here’s [another]( one from Daniel Bier of the Financial Times, suggesting the breakdown started when the FDA pulled the Johnson & Johnson vaccine from the market over side-effect concerns: If the U.S. is to beat Covid, then it must do better than this. And that will involve convincing the skittish to roll up their sleeves. West Virginia Governor Jim Justice struck on the [great idea]( of giving people savings bonds for getting vaccinated. Karl Smith suggests a better approach could be to [give pharmacies similar incentives to get people shots](. Dangle some cash in front of them, and they’ll presumably apply the same marketing savvy that makes you crave Cadbury mini eggs somewhere around Valentine’s Day to the cause of herd immunity. It would also help to stress, over and over again, that Covid vaccines may not be 100% perfect, but then nothing is. Not even the Rotten Tomatoes [rating]( for “Citizen Kane.” But when it comes to preventing serious illness and death, especially in areas where infection rates are already low, [Covid vaccines are as close to 100% as you can get](, Cathy O’Neil writes. Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law states that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Covid vaccines fit that bill. Unfortunately, Faye Flam writes, the [CDC keeps muddying this message with confusing guidance]( on what the vaccinated can and can’t do. It’s bad enough we let the ticks beat us. We can’t let Covid do it. Paid Post The power of PayPal online, now in person. Give your small business an easy way to accept touch-free, in-person payments. Create a unique QR code with the PayPal app and display it on your device or as a printout in store. [Download the app.]( Customer must have PayPal account and app to pay. PayPal Look, We’re All in This Together Some ultra-high-income people are understandably mad about President Joe Biden’s idea to hike their capital gains tax rates to help pay for working infrastructure, child care and other such luxuries for the rest of us. They warn this will make them afraid to invest, hurting growth. Noah Smith considers these arguments and declares them bogus. For one thing, the fact that Dogecoin is still worth $39 billion despite being a joke suggests [we may have a smidgen too much investment exuberance]( at the moment.  Meanwhile, [companies keep paying executives huge bonuses just to hang around](, which Chris Bryant notes is kind of a bad look while millions remain unemployed. It’s also not great governance. But the more the already-wealthy keep trying to pile up even more wealth at the expense of others, the harsher the blowback could be. Meanwhile, infrastructure spending can bring us nice things, such as the Denver International Airport. Republicans and businesspeople called it a boondoggle 25 years ago, Matthew Winkler writes. [Now it’s an engine of Colorado’s revival]( and a model of how infrastructure can make an economy better for everybody.  Further Biden-Policy Reading: - Biden’s speech [delivered what he promised: a return to normalcy](. — Jonathan Bernstein - Instead of paying workers not to work, [turn the extra unemployment benefit into a bonus]( for when they get hired. — Michael R. Strain Profit, Profit, Increasingly We Got It We’re in the middle of corporate earnings season. This is typically a kabuki theater of low-bar-jumping and [great-quarter-guysing](. But the profits have truly been mind-blowing this quarter. Apple and Facebook, which have more power over our lives than even deer ticks, beat analyst EPS estimates by 50% and 39% respectively. The trouble is that mathematics, along with the slow return to normal life, [will make such feats difficult to repeat](, writes Tae Kim. Corporate America in general has been on a decade-long profit tear, in fact, and Nir Kaissar warns that can’t continue indefinitely, either. The trouble is, with valuations high and dividend yields low, it’s [tough to see what will get stock prices to continue to balloon]( quite as comically as they have lately. And hovering over all this hubris are the ghosts of AOL and Yahoo. Once almost as mighty as Apple and Facebook, they are now merely [spare parts to be sold for a little more 5G wireless]( spectrum, writes Tara Lachapelle. Ask not for whom the (Nasdaq) bell tolls. It tolls for thee. Telltale Charts Mayor Bill de Blasio says New York City will be fully back in business starting on July 1. [Somebody needs to inform the subway system](, writes Brian Chappatta. Americans may be flying a little more, but it is [way too soon and too little to help the aerospace industry](, writes Brooke Sutherland. Further Reading The fate of Europe may hang on Mario Draghi’s ability to [pull Italy’s economy into the 21st century](. — Rachel Sanderson [Investors piling into Greek banks should beware]( how much depends on an uncertain economic rebound. — Elisa Martinuzzi Here’s how Biden can [ease the burden of tariffs while keeping pressure on China](. — Wendy Cutler Huarong Asset Management is the [latest black eye for debt-rating firms](. — Shuli Ren [Breaking the rules is working out OK for Elon Musk]( so far. — Matt Levine ICYMI Biden income-tax increases would [hit married couples making more than $509,300](. The U.S. told [Americans to get out of India](. Green energy will [need a lot of land](. Kominers’s Conundrums Hint In case you're stuck trying to identify the somewhat surreal sequels in our [movie magic Conundrum](, we're revealing the first words in each movie name as a hint. (Some of them start with definite or indefinite articles, so this is a more helpful clue for some than others.) The 14 movies start with the following words (listed in order): The; One; Good; La; Shakespeare; Black; A; The; Murder; Chariots; The; Men; My; Raging. — Scott Duke Kominers Kickers Archeologists find a [pregnant Egyptian mummy](. Scientists find [billion-year-old water](. Citizen Kane’s rating was 100% until Rotten Tomatoes [added an 80-year-old bad review](. (h/t Scott Kominers for the first three kickers) RIP to [John Richards, grammar guardian](. (h/t Ellen Kominers) [Giant duck wins honorary degree](. Notes: Please send honorary degrees and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net.  Like Bloomberg Opinion Today? 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