Should we be giving people Covid booster shots? ̄\_(ツ)_/ ̄

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a booster shot of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Covid [booster shots may or may not]( be necessary. - The Taliban takes over [a changed Afghanistan](. - Brick and mortar [will not fix Amazon’s problems](. - Shipping companies are [making too much money](. Booster Shots: Who Needs Them? Navigating the coronavirus pandemic has never been easy for people, corporate people, governments or, uh, [deer](. But the cocktail of vaccines and variants makes it more [befuddling]( than ever. For the unvaccinated, the answer is obvious: Get [vaccinated](. But what about kids who are too young to get vaccinated? And with the delta variant, the vaccinated have to start asking themselves 2020 questions all over again. Should you hang out with friends? Eat in a restaurant? Wear a mask? Fly [650 miles]( to meet a TikTok date? It depends! It doesn’t take long for your decision tree to just turn into one big ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, only less smiley. A big problem is how full of mysteries and riddles Covid information often is. For example, is Israel a massive vaccination success story? Yes. Is Israel suffering a massive new wave of Covid cases? Also yes. What is this necromancy? Apparently the delta variant is making it [harder]( for vaccinated people to fight off infections. This may not be as alarming as it sounds. The vaccines still keep most people from getting very sick. But it’s scary enough that Israel has started offering booster shots, and President Joe Biden’s administration is now pushing them in the U.S. But are boosters necessary? Faye Flam argues [there’s not much science to back up the idea](. As far as we can tell, the vaccines are still doing exactly what they should be doing. And getting a third shot of a drug that was designed to fight off Original Formula Covid may not be any more effective at fighting delta than what your vaccine-juiced immune system could cook up on its own. A more effective use of our spare shots might be getting them in the arms of people who have had zero shots so far. Or not! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Further Covid Reading: Rather than complaining about [Nicole Kidman’s quarantine exemption](, people in Hong Kong should be eager for more, and with clearer rules. — Anjani Trivedi Taliban, Meet Afghanistan When it’s not [firing]( into crowds, the Taliban can sound downright progressive these days, at least by 19th-century standards, with talk of letting women hold jobs and the like. It’s nice to hear, but of course nobody is buying it. At the same time, the actual [country and people of Afghanistan have progressed over the past 20 years](, writes Bobby Ghosh. They are more educated, more connected to the world and have higher expectations. This poses a dilemma for the Taliban: Should it soften its approach or crack down even harder? This question is particularly urgent for the Afghans who have opposed Talibanism over the past 20 years, whether they worked with the Americans or not. The U.S. has a moral imperative to get as many of these people to safety as it can, but Leonid Bershidsky writes [they knew the risks they were taking]( and have always been willing to sacrifice themselves to improve their country.  Further Afghanistan Reading: - Instability [threatens returns on China’s Belt and Road]( investments. — Shuli Ren - Take Afghanistan news with mountains of salt because [there’s a lot of misinformation and spinning](. — Jonathan Bernstein Amazon Not Kidding About This Brick-and-Mortar Thing, Apparently When Amazon bought Whole Foods, everybody freaked out for a while about how it spelled the end of the grocery business. Four years later, the grocery business is still mostly the [grocery business](, and Whole Foods is still mostly Whole Foods. And Amazon has [wandered]( off like a bored toddler to other brick-and-mortar ventures. Now its hot new concept is a physical location, let’s call it a “store,” where it can “sell” “products” for a certain price, let’s call it “retail.” Plans are still hazy, but these “stores” may be constructed with common materials such as bricks and mortar. What on Earth is going on here? Tae Kim suggests [Amazon is casting about for answers to slowing e-commerce]( growth and rising competition for its real moneymaker, cloud services. You get three guesses as to how well “brick-and-mortar retail” will do the trick, but all of them have to be “[not very](.” Telltale Charts Shipping companies are making [ludicrous profits from supply bottlenecks](, and it’s not a good look, writes Chris Bryant. To atone for their sins they should invest that cash in cutting emissions. [Emerging-market stocks are among the most unloved]( in the world, which means they could be about to deliver big returns, writes Nir Kaissar. Further Reading The [infrastructure bill’s proposal for taxing crypto]( is a sensible first step. — Bloomberg’s editorial board Why is the [SBA in such a rush to forgive PPP loans]( without first learning if they were rife with fraud? — Tim O’Brien Brexit has caused [an exodus of rich bankers from London to Europe](, which the U.K. government can ill afford. — Mark Gilbert [Trickle-down economics has failed](; making capital cheap hasn’t encouraged businesses to invest in the future. — Noah Smith Runaway [global warming is ruining infrastructure]( faster than we can keep up. — Carl Pope ICYMI The U.S. [wasted billions on Afghan war projects](. [OnlyFans is getting rid of porn](. Let’s see if it pays off. The new thing rich people do for fun is [getting blasted on ’shrooms](. Kickers Chameleon [robot changes colors]( to blend with surroundings, infest your dreams. (h/t Scott Kominers) Two female sharks, uh, [find a way](. Rare disorder makes people [hallucinate tiny clowns]( and gnomes. Old and busted: pet rocks. New hotness: [$300,000 NFT pet rocks](. Notes:  Please send pet rocks and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Like Bloomberg Opinion Today? [Subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more](. You’ll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Opinion Today newsletter. 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