MEDIA UPDATE: MORE FEAR, MORE CANDLES

In the 24 February New York Times “Coronavirus Update,” the paper warned that “new variants threaten to overshadow encouraging news.” The encouraging news referred to was Johnson & Johnson’s announcement it would deliver 100 million doses of its new COVID-19 vaccine by the end of June. 
Yet, in the next sentence, the article states, “But some experts said the California variant was unlikely to create as much as a burden as the variant that originated in Britain.”
The article goes on to say:
“U.S. federal regulators are expected to allow the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to be stored at standard freezer temperatures. Federal regulators have informed Pfizer and BioNTech that they plan to approve the companies’ request to store their vaccine at standard freezer temperatures instead of in ultra-cold conditions, potentially expanding the number of sites that could administer shots, according to two people familiar with the companies who spoke on condition of anonymity.”
If this is such good news, why are the people affiliated with the big pharmaceutical producers of the vaccines speaking “on condition of anonymity”?
Of the three vaccines approved so far, the Pfizer-BioNTech, when first released, had to be stored at the frigid temperature of -70 degrees C to have a good chance of being effective. As the website Very Well Health reported on 30 December, “Experts anticipate the Pfizer vaccine’s difficult storage requirements will pose a challenge during distribution.”
Now, only weeks later, the “challenge of distribution” is being improved after the giant pharmaceutical company requested permission from the FDA to relax the initial storage requirements. The FDA approved the request last Thursday, with Reuters reporting, “BioNTech has said it imposed long-term storage and transportation requirements of -70 degrees out of caution because it had started stability and durability tests on its vaccine relatively late.”  
U.S: “We’re #1” (in COVID Deaths)
The New York Times “Coronavirus Update” also cited:
“With a death toll which has edged past 500,000, the United States now accounts for 20 percent of the world’s known coronavirus deaths. This has resulted in the largest downturn in life expectancy since World War II.”
The update concluded with a reaction from Jeffrey Shaman, professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University, on the news that the death toll in the U.S. from COVID-19 reached 500,000: “The magnitude of it is just horrifying. The scale of loss was not inevitable, but the result of the failure to control the spread in the United States.”
TRENDPOST: On 22 February, President Biden and Vice President Harris held a solemn, televised ceremony described by Microsoft News: “Five hundred candles glowed around President Joe Biden as he stood outside the White House in a moment of silence to honor the lives of the more than 500,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19.”
Where’s the ceremony for the tens of millions of teenage and adult Americans who, according to the CDC, are struggling with significant mental health issues due to the social isolation and economic loss from the extensive lockdowns? Where is the solemn moment of silence for the approximately 54 million Americans, 11 million of them children, suffering from food insecurity, in large part because of the extended lockdowns in so many states? (As per Truthout.org.)
Amidst the solemn candle-lighting for 500,000 Americans dead from COVID-19, not a word from the President about why the U.S., despite spending more on healthcare by far than any other country, leads the world in coronavirus deaths. 
Trends Journal readers know why because we’ve written about it numerous times: the U.S. is the fattest country on Earth. Data shows that obesity makes it 60 percent more likely someone who contracts COVID will die from it. (See our 25 August article, “THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM,” and our 6 October article, “FAT CHANCE COVID WON’T KILL YOU.”)
And where is the solemn candle-lit ceremony for the more than 8.7 million people worldwide who die each year from breathing polluted air containing particles from fossil fuel emissions? (See our 23 February article, “AIR POLLUTION KILLING 3.5 TIMES MORE THAN COVID.”)