Raphael Stevens

Pepsi owns the sponsorship rights for the Super Bowl halftime show in a deal that’s set to expire after 2022.
One expert estimates the value of the halftime show to the National Football League is in the range of $25 million to $50 million per year.

Jennifer Lopez performs onstage during the Pepsi Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show at Hard Rock Stadium on February 02, 2020 in Miami, Florida.
Robin Alam | Icon Sportswire | Getty Images

The 2021 professional football season is just over a month old, and the NFL is already preparing for the 2023 Super Bowl.
The National Football League’s Super Bowl halftime show is sponsored by Pepsi, though the deal is set to expire after the 2022 game that marks the end of the current season. The NFL is now planning to take future sponsorship rights to the open market, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the negotiations are private.

Pepsi obtained the show’s rights in 2012 as part of a more significant marketing deal valued at over $2 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. Before that, auto parts manufacturer Bridgestone held the show’s rights and paid up to $10 million annually. 
Pepsi could still renew its deal with the league, but the NFL may also choose to carve out the halftime show and sell the asset separately, the people said.
The NFL declined to comment for this story.
Pepsi will remain the sponsor of February’s game in Los Angeles, with performers including Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, and Eminem. The NFL partners with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation to produce the show. The 2022 Super Bowl airs on NBC, which is owned by CNBC parent company Comcast.
The value of the halftime show could range from $25 million to $50 million, one marketing expert estimated, using industry metrics. That takes into account what Bridgestone last paid for the rights along with an evolving media landscape that factors in social media impressions.

Coming up with a precise estimate is a challenge. NBC charged $6.5 million for 30-second ad slots for the upcoming Super Bowl LVI in 2022. Applying that figure to a 12-minute halftime show would assume an ad value in the $150 million range. But it’s unlikely a company would pay that much every year just for the halftime performance.
A Super Bowl halftime rights package usually includes ancillary programming during the NFL season, commercial spots during the Super Bowl, exclusive access to performers for content and other NFL branding leading up to the game.

General view prior to the game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV at Raymond James Stadium on February 07, 2021 in Tampa, Florida.
Kevin C. Cox | Getty Images

Wherever it lands, the price would be rich, as marketers get a huge audience when they invest in the Super Bowl. The 2021 game averaged 96.4 million viewers (including streaming) for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Kansas City Chiefs matchup. NBC last aired the Super Bowl in 2018, drawing over 100 million viewers.
“Nothing reaches half the marketplace in homes and demographics [other] than the Super Bowl,” said Tony Ponturo, who was vice president of Anheuser-Busch global media sports and entertainment marketing. “Some younger, new tech company that wants to make a splash and has the resources to do it” should make a bid for the rights should they go to market, he added.

‘Instant brand awareness’

In discussing Super Bowl rights with CNBC on Wednesday, Ponturo used Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl commercial as an example of how newer tech companies can “rock the boat” using the NFL’s top game.
“If you didn’t know who Apple was in 1984, you now knew who Apple was,” Ponturo said. “It was Steve Jobs’ way of making a huge splash.”
Given the game’s global appeal and the halftime show’s inclusion of artists from outside the U.S., the sponsor could come from another country, including Germany, where the NFL wants to grow. Asked about brands that could potentially be a good fit, Ponturo mentioned electric car maker Lucid Motors.
“I would guess one out of 100 auto customers know who Lucid even is,” Ponturo said. “So if they need brand awareness and want to make a huge splash to people not on Wall Street or auto aficionados to know who they are, I can see a company like that doing it.”
Ponturo called it “instant brand awareness” and, despite the high price tag, “one would argue it’s worth it,” he said.
Lucid didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
WATCH: Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott discusses restaurant investment

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Covid deaths are declining in every region except Europe, but vaccine inequities continue to plague much of the developing world.
Tedros said 56 countries did not reach the WHO’s goal of vaccinating 10% of their populations against Covid by the end of September.
Three countries – Burundi, Eritrea and North Korea – have yet to start distributing vaccines.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a news conference organized by Geneva Association of United Nations Correspondents (ACANU) amid the COVID-19 outbreak, caused by the novel coronavirus, at the WHO headquarters in Geneva Switzerland July 3, 2020.
Fabrice Coffrini | Pool | Reuters

Covid-19 deaths fell to their lowest level in almost a year last week at nearly 50,000 fatalities, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday.
Deaths from Covid are declining in every region except Europe, but vaccine inequities continue to plague much of the developing world. Tedros said 56 countries did not reach the WHO’s goal of vaccinating 10% of their populations against Covid by the end of September, adding that reported deaths have been highest in countries with the least access to the shots.

“It’s still an unacceptably high level, almost 50,000 deaths a week,” Tedros said at a Covid-19 briefing. “And the real number is certainly higher.”

Three countries – Burundi, Eritrea and North Korea – have yet to start distributing vaccines, Tedros said, noting that the majority of the 56 nations with vaccination rates under 10% are in Africa. Half of the 52 African countries with Covid vaccines have fully immunized 2% or less of their populations, according to a WHO report from Sept. 30.
Tedros said last Thursday that high- and upper-middle-income countries have used 75% of all Covid shots developed during the pandemic, while less than 5% of Africa’s population has been fully vaccinated. He called Wednesday for wealthy nations to stop distributing Covid booster shots to help meet the WHO’s goal of immunizing 40% of every country by the end of the year.

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“Reaching 40% needs a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach, which depends on political and civil society leadership,” Tedros said.
WHO officials have denounced the global rollout of Covid boosters for weeks in hopes of reallocating surplus vaccines to low-income countries and blocking the emergence of future outbreaks and variants. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres joined last week’s WHO Covid briefing to condemn global vaccine inequities as “immoral” and “stupid,” adding that low vaccination rates in the global south could fuel the mutation of vaccine-resistant Covid variants.
Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that unvaccinated individuals are 11 times likelier to die from Covid and 10 times more likely to require hospitalization for their symptoms. Unvaccinated people are roughly 4.5 times likelier to catch Covid as well, the CDC found.

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The White House defended its use of a Trump-era health policy to deport migrants even as the U.S. moves to lift Canada and Mexico border restrictions for fully vaccinated foreign nationals.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters the eased travel restrictions will allow only fully vaccinated foreign nationals with “proper documentation” to enter the U.S.
Immigration lawyers and some Democrats have alleged an inconsistency around vaccination status in the Biden administration’s border policies.

Migrants expelled from the U.S. and sent back to Mexico under Title 42, walk towards Mexico at the Paso del Norte International border bridge, in this picture taken from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico October 1, 2021.
Jose Luis Gonzalez | Reuters

The Biden administration on Wednesday defended its use of a Trump-era health law to deport undocumented migrants at the nation’s borders, even as it lifts restrictions for fully vaccinated foreign nationals traveling from Canada or Mexico into the U.S.
The law, known as Title 42, “remains in place,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said when asked whether fully vaccinated migrants seeking asylum can enter the U.S.

She told reporters Wednesday that the eased travel restrictions will allow only fully vaccinated foreign nationals with “proper documentation” to enter the U.S.
Then-President Donald Trump’s administration introduced Title 42 in March 2020 over concerns about the Covid pandemic. More than 1 million migrants have been expelled under Title 42 since it went into effect in March 2020, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Senior administration officials on Tuesday said the U.S. is preparing to reopen its land borders with Canada and Mexico for fully vaccinated foreign nationals in early November, putting an end to a policy that has curbed nonessential travel since it was implemented at the outset of the pandemic. 

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In practice, Title 42 means that anyone caught crossing the border illegally, namely without a visa to enter or without going through a formal border checkpoint, can be deported immediately without being offered the opportunity to claim asylum in the United States.
Absent Title 42, U.S. law requires that all migrants who cross the border, with or without papers, be given the opportunity to seek asylum.

In August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the policy would remain in effect until there is no longer a danger of people who aren’t U.S. citizens bringing Covid-19 into the country when they cross the border. Unaccompanied children are exempt from the health law. 
“The Title 42 restrictions are really about protecting the migrants themselves, the DHS workforce and local communities,” a senior administration official told reporters Tuesday. “There’s a strong public health basis, for the moment, for continuing with the Title 42 restrictions.”
An official also noted that the health policy remains necessary because social distancing is difficult to enforce in Border Patrol facilities where migrants are typically held. 

Confusion over policy

Immigration lawyers and some Democrats have alleged an inconsistency around vaccination status in the Biden administration’s border policies.
John Bruning, a staff attorney of the Refugee & Immigrant Program at The Advocates for Human Rights, criticized the White House and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
“How is this reconciled with Mayorkas doubling down on Title 42 expulsions? Migrants are being summarily deported whether or not they have been vaccinated,” Bruning said in a Twitter post Wednesday.
Julian Castro, a former Housing and Urban Development secretary for the Obama administration, said in a Twitter post that it was “great news” that borders will be reopened but called for an end to Title 42. 
“Now our ports of entry should reopen to allow people to make an asylum claim,” Castro said in the post on Wednesday. “Title 42 is a stain on this nation and it should end.”
The decision to maintain Title 42 comes as the Biden administration grapples with the highest number of migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in two decades.
Mayorkas also defended the administration’s use of Title 42 on Tuesday, telling Yahoo News that Title 42 is a “Centers for Disease Control public health authority” and not an “immigration policy.” 
“It is not an immigration policy that we in this administration would embrace,” Mayorkas said in an interview with Yahoo. “But we view it as a public health imperative as the Centers for Disease Control has so ordered.”
“We’re in the midst of a pandemic,” he said. “For anyone to think it’s business as usual I think would be, frankly, ignoring a pandemic that has taken more than 700,000 American lives.”
The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES, said in a Twitter post Tuesday that the Biden administration was expelling asylum seekers without due process and “sending families and children back to imminent danger in the name of ‘public health.'”
RAICES was among several groups that challenged the health policy in a lawsuit last month. A U.S. appeals court recently ruled that the Biden administration could continue using Title 42 while the lawsuit proceeds.

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The national labor shortage has hit service industries hard, as this week’s JOLTS report showed with a record 4.3 million people quitting jobs led by restaurant and retail employees.
Wage inflation is a big focus amid a tight jobs market and record openings, but Chipotle says thinking about labor as a cost is a mistake.
It is investing roughly $2 billion a year in labor and its senior leaders say that is part of long-term return on investment strategy.

HOUSTON, TEXAS – JUNE 09: Employees speak together at a Chipotle Mexican Grill on June 09, 2021 in Houston, Texas. Menu prices at the Chipotle Mexican Grill have risen by roughly 4% to cover the costs of raising its’ minimum wage to $15 an hour for employees. The restaurant industry has been boosting wages in the hopes of attracting workers during a labor crunch. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Brandon Bell | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Unlike many of its peers in the restaurant space that have a franchise model, Chipotle Mexican Grill owns all of its 3,000 — on the way to a goal of 6,000 — restaurants. That means it also owns the relationship with near-100,000 employees, many on the front lines and in lower-paying, higher turnover restaurant positions. Even before the pandemic, turnover in the food sector was typically above 100% annually.
For Chipotle senior management, focus on investment in workers is nothing new, but at a time of a national labor shortage and wage inflation in lower-paying industries, it has a message for competitors: if you think about labor as a cost you are thinking about it the wrong way.

This week, the latest JOLTS report from the Labor Department showed a record level of workers quitting jobs that are concentrated in the restaurant and retail sector, and a continued record level of open positions.
The jobs situation is so tight CEOs from these industries are taking to desperate appeals. After many in the business world lashed out at extended unemployment benefits as a government assistance effort that was the primary reason people were staying out of the workforce, Barry Sternlicht of hotel operator Starwood Capital said on CNBC Wednesday the government now needs to pay people to come back to work. “The whole service economy is in a crisis,” he said. “The country can’t really work without its service people back.”

Marissa Andrada, chief diversity, inclusion and people officer at Chipotle, says it has been able to attract and retain talent by making an investment in workers ahead of the pandemic rather than as a sudden response to it.
“We feel like the investments we made in people in the past couple of years have set us up for the rest of the world opening up,” Andrada said at CNBC’s @Work Summit on Wednesday.
Starting in 2019, Chipotle invested in education benefits for workers, and it has since extended those to debt-free education for all employees rather than only tuition reimbursement, the latter being a benefit model that education experts said was not well-designed for low-wage workers and received limited use. This year has seen companies like Amazon, Target and Walmart all make moves to offer debt-free college degrees as well (Walmart has had a program in place for years, though it had been charging employees $1 a week.)

Rachel Carlson, the co-founder and CEO of Guild Education — which offers a platform for companies including Chipotle to make education available to workers and is a two-time CNBC Disruptor 50 company, including No. 49 on the 2021 Disruptor 50 list — said in a separate session at the CNBC @Work Summit that there are still wide gaps to bridge between employers and employees over understanding of a company’s role in education.
She said Guild research shows that today’s workers are still afraid to tell an employer that they don’t plan to stay with the company for 40 years, let alone 20 years, with a lingering idea about their “grandfather’s General Electric career.” But employers are much more likely to see shorter tenures as a win. 
“I am in conversations with CFOs … and leadership teams saying they are thrilled when this role is sustained by one leader, one employee, for three years, five years. We need to have the conversation about what is today’s ‘tour of duty,'” Carlson said.
In addition, she said Guild knows that even as more big companies offer education benefits, “We know a very significant amount of employees feel uncomfortable telling employers they don’t have a high school diploma or college degree. … They inflate data or avoid answering it.”

‘Every dime we spend on the labor line’

Andrada said the company also leaned into a health care concierge service for employees and their families, and she stressed that was an investment made pre-pandemic.
“We are grateful we’ve been able to attract and retain talent,” she said, though she added the company is not immune to current labor conditions and, “there are pockets across the U.S. where there are challenges.” 
Jack Hartung, Chipotle chief financial officer, who spoke with Andrada at the CNBC event, said since the company runs all of its restaurants it has to look at an investment in people in a different way than as a typical profit & loss cost. “If you look at it that way, the main objective is to minimize cost.”
For Chipotle, “almost all managers in the future will come from the crews of today,” Hartung said. “So every dime we spend on that labor line, whether wages or benefits or education is an investment in the future, and that’s a different way to think about it.”
Andrada noted that the pathway from an hourly employee to being a six-figure general manager in a restaurant can take as little as three years, though labor economists are quick to point out that in any future for a low-wage service business, there will be many less general manager jobs than front-line lower wage ones.
“We stated as a goal that we wanted to exit the pandemic stronger than we came into it,” Hartung said. “We don’t want to just eke through, we want to make sure we make investments along way that make us stronger.” 
That doesn’t mean the company has been able to avoid the negative headlines related to labor that many big companies face, some which stem from legal battles that began many years ago. And by at least one core labor economist measure, Chipotle wasn’t exactly rushing to make sure its employees’ overall wellness, including financial, was being met ahead of peers. While the movement for a $15 minimum wage has existed for years, Chipotle didn’t enact that labor spend until 2021 amid a tight labor market and it is making up for that cost in other ways: earlier this year, Chipotle raised menu prices by 4% to cover the minimum wage move.

Chipotle, Gen Z and millennial consumers

But on a market basis, the company’s approach is working. Chipotle shares have tripled since the March 2020 Covid bottom, and Wall Street is positive on the company for reasons that can be, if not exactly, at least tangentially correlated to management’s long-term strategy.
In a bullish thesis on Chipotle in mid-September, Piper Sandler said its long-term return on investment capital compared favorably to many peers. Goldman Sachs analysts noted in a recent bullish call on the stock that labor costs will continue to rise.
“It is key for investors,” Piper Sandler analyst Nicole Miller Regan told CNBC via email on Wednesday about the company’s approach to investing in workers, which is estimated to be slightly over $2 billion in 2022. But she added it remains more difficult for Wall Street to model precisely. “I am not sure as analysts we have all of the data to model it,” she wrote.
Chipotle is consistent on its messaging about being a people-first organization, and even if that remains a moving target as far as the stock target price, and Wall Street does see the company as an ESG brand leader of the future that appeals to key demographics.
In a note this week, Cowen wrote that among millennial and Gen Z consumers Chipotle stands out among restaurant chains for issues including food transparency, a rapidly-growing digital business, reducing waste, packaging, and energy use, including 22% of electricity that is generated from renewable sources. While Cowen’s analysts noted a generally high level of trust relative to peers, notably missing among the ESG factors cited in the report was labor standards and treatment of workers.”
Cowen analyst Andrew Charles said staffing is the restaurant industry topic of the moment for investors, and a “massive issue” which has led the sector to cool off a bit. Chipotle is not immune from the labor market pressures, but it is also an issue that sets them apart.
“They are best-equipped in the industry to deal with it,” he said, noting that their per-store annual sales are high relative to peers ($2.5 million per store) giving them more room to raise wages and benefits, including education and health, such as telemedicine-delivered mental health services which Andrada highlighted.
“It really ties to culture and I would argue these guys really have that down,” Charles said. “And they are growing stores at a healthy clip and growing a company-operated system and can identify talent within the system.”
While the treatment of workers has not come through clearly in ESG analysis as a driver like sustainability measures Cowen was able to track, Charles said going to $15 an hour was “a big bet.” And he added with the restaurant industry competition coming down to staffing right now their approach has been spot-on.
Andrada said companies need to “get really clear about who you are and what you stand for.”
For Chipotle, that includes being “manically focused on people-first,” she said, and that “makes decisions on investments in people really easy.”
Ultimately, worker issues and its broader culture may come through in the ESG market picture. “Chipotle has always been and will always be rooted in purpose and in this ESG world we live in, that suits them very well and is a big tailwind,” Charles said.
There is a fundamental difference between looking at labor as an operating cost, which an organization wants as low as possible, or as an investment that needs to be made every year as part of a long-term return on investment strategy, Hartung said. Whether it is an investment in education or any other employee benefit, a company won’t see that return necessarily “next year,” he said, but the return will be sustainable. “We have $300 million to $400 million in capex a year, mostly in restaurants. Wages and benefits are a $2 billion number every year.”
The company would not put the money into labor unless it expected to generate a return in the future, in the form of both leaders and financials. “Over time, we will have great people and results,” Hartung said.  More

The NIH study on “mixing and matching” Covid vaccines included more than 450 adults who have received one of the three regimens currently available in the United States: J&J’s, Moderna’s or Pfizer’s.
Volunteers were divided into groups and received an extra shot of their original vaccine or a booster from a different company.
Antibody levels were measured two weeks and four weeks after the boosters were given.

Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine recipients are better off getting a booster shot from Pfizer or Moderna, a highly anticipated U.S. study suggested Wednesday.
The National Institutes of Health study on “mixing and matching” Covid vaccines included more than 450 adults who have received one of the three regimens currently available in the United States: J&J’s, Moderna’s or Pfizer’s. The study, which looks at whether there are any advantages or drawbacks to using different boosters, hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed.

Volunteers were divided into groups and received an extra shot of their original vaccine or a booster from a different company. Antibody levels were measured two weeks and four weeks after the boosters were given.
All the combinations boosted antibody levels higher, though Pfizer’s and Moderna’s boosters appeared to work best. People who received a booster dose of either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines had a higher increase in their antibody responses more often than those who received an extra dose of J&J, according to the study.
The study showed recipients of Moderna or Pfizer’s original vaccines could easily swap third doses; the results were about the same. Volunteers who originally received the J&J vaccine appear to have gotten a better immune response if they got a booster made by Pfizer or Moderna.
There were no serious side effects tied to the additional shots and no new symptoms emerged after participants received the booster shots, researchers said. Two participants vomited after their boosters; one had received Moderna and the other J&J. Two other people who got a J&J booster reported fatigue or insomnia.
“These data suggest that if a vaccine is approved or authorized as a booster, an immune response will be generated regardless of the primary Covid-19 vaccination regimen,” researchers wrote in the study. “Heterologous prime boost strategies may offer immunological advantages to optimize the breadth and longevity of protection achieved with currently available vaccines.”

J&J’s one-dose vaccine uses an adenovirus, while Pfizer’s and Moderna’s two-dose vaccines use mRNA technology. The thought by scientists is that by “mixing and matching” vaccines that use different platforms, people may be able to get broader protection against the coronavirus and its new variants.
The study is likely to fuel a debate on whether to give additional doses to the millions of Americans who received J&J’s vaccines.
Unlike Pfizer’s and Moderna’s two-shot mRNA vaccines, J&J hoped to offer a one-shot solution that would protect the public enough to help bring an end to the coronavirus pandemic. But its protection, at 72% in the U.S., was viewed by some as inferior to Moderna’s and Pfizer’s vaccines, which both touted efficacy rates above 90%.
A second dose of J&J’s shot results in performance similar to that of the mRNA vaccines, boosting protection from symptomatic infection to 94% when administered two months after the first dose in the United States, according to company data released Sept. 21.
In a separate document published earlier Wednesday, the FDA said data provided by J&J suggests recipients may benefit from an additional dose given two months after the initial shot.
Regulators wrote that estimates on the effectiveness of J&J’s single-shot vaccine in trials and real-world studies “are consistently less than the highest effectiveness estimates for the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.”
The findings published Wednesday are expected to be presented at a key Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory committee meeting Friday.
Last month, U.S. regulators authorized booster shots of the Covid vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech to a wide array of Americans, including the elderly, adults with underlying medical conditions, and those who work or live in high-risk settings, such as health and grocery workers.

CNBC Health & Science

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William Shatner, moments after returning to Earth from a trip just beyond the edge of space, recounted his experience in an emotional talk with Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos.
The Canadian actor, who famously played Capt. Kirk in the original “Star Trek” series, described the spaceflight as “unbelievable” and something that “everybody in the world needs to do.”
Bezos’ company launched Shatner and three others in a New Shepard rocket on Wednesday, with the crew spending a couple minutes in microgravity during the trip to space and back.

“What you’ve given me is the most profound experience I can imagine.”
Those were the words of William Shatner moments after returning to Earth from a trip just beyond the edge of space during an emotional talk with Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos.

The Canadian actor, who famously played Capt. Kirk in the original “Star Trek” television series, added that the spaceflight was “unbelievable” and something that “everybody in the world needs to do.”
“It was so moving to me,” Shatner said.
Bezos’ company launched Shatner and three others in a New Shepard rocket on Wednesday, with the crew spending a couple minutes in microgravity during the trip to space and back.
Read the full transcript of what Shatner told Bezos below or watch the video above.
Shatner: “Everybody in the world needs to do this. Everybody in the world needs to see … it was unbelievable.”

Shatner: “I mean, the little things, the weightlessness, and to see the blue color whip by and now you’re staring into blackness. That’s the thing. This covering of blue is this sheet, this blanket, this comforter of blue around that we have around us. We think ‘oh, that’s blue sky’ and suddenly you shoot through it all of a sudden, like you whip a sheet off you when you’re asleep, and you’re looking into blackness – into black ugliness. And you look down, there’s the blue down there, and the black up there, and there is Mother Earth and comfort and – is there death? Is that the way death is?”

Shatner: “It was so moving to me. This experience; it was something unbelievable. Yeah, weightlessness, my stomach went out, this was so weird, but not as weird as the covering of blue – this is what I never expected. It’s one thing to say “oh the sky … and it’s fragile,” it’s all true. But what isn’t true, what is unknown, until you do [go to space] is this pillow, there’s this soft blue. Look at the beauty of that color. And it’s so thin and you’re through it in an instant. How thick is it? Is it a mile?”
Bezos: “The atmosphere, it depends on how you measure because how it thins out, maybe 50 miles.”
Shatner: “So you’re through 50 miles … suddenly you’re through the blue and you’re into black … it’s mysterious and galaxies and things, but what you see is black, and what you see down there is light, and that’s the difference.”
Shatner: “And not to have this? You have done something … what you’ve given me is the most profound experience I can imagine. I am so filled with emotion about what just happened. It’s extraordinary. I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now, I don’t want to lose it. It’s so much larger than me and life; it hasn’t got anything to do with the little green and blue orb. It has to do with the enormity and the quickness and the suddenness of life and death. Oh my god, it’s unbelievable.”
Bezos: “It’s so beautiful.”
Shatner: “Beautiful, yes, beautiful in it’s way but.”
Bezos: “No, I mean your words. It’s just amazing.”
Shatner: “I can’t even begin to express … what I would love to do is to communicate as much as possible is the jeopardy. The moment you see the vulnerability of everything; it’s so small. This air, which is keeping us alive, is thinner than your skin. It’s a sliver; it’s immeasurably small when you think in terms of the universe. It’s negligible, this air. Mars doesn’t have any, nothing. I mean, when you think of when carbon dioxide changes to oxygen and what is 20% that sustains our life? It’s so thin.”
Bezos: “And you shoot through it so fast.”
Shatner: “So quickly! 50 miles.”
Bezos: “And then you’re just in blackness.”
Shatner: “You’re in death.”
Bezos: “This is life.”
Shatner: “And that’s death. In the moment, this is life and that’s death. And in an instant you go ‘wow, that’s death.’ That’s what I saw.”
Bezos: That’s amazing.”
Shatner: “I am overwhelmed. I had no idea. You know, we were talking earlier before going: ‘Well, you know, it’s going to be different.’ Whatever that is phrase is that you have, that you have a different view of things? That doesn’t begin to explain, to describe it for me.”
Shatner: “This is now the commercial. It would be so important for everybody to have that experience, through one means or anything – maybe you put it on 3D and wear goggles to have that experience, that’s certainly a technical possibility.
Shatner: “We were lying there, and I’m thinking – one delay after another delay and we’re lying there – and I’m thinking ‘yeah, I’m a little jittery here.’ And they moved the page, and ‘oh, there’s something in the engine,’ they said: ‘Found an anomaly in the engine … we’re gonna hold a little longer.’ And I feel this, in the stomach, the biome inside, and I’m think ‘okay, I’m thinking I’m a little nervous here’ and then another delay. By the way, the simulation … it’s only a simulation, everything else is much more involved.”
Bezos: “Doesn’t capture it.”
Shatner: “Doesn’t capture it … and besides, with the jeopardy, BANG this thing hits. That wasn’t anything like the simulation.”
Bezos: “It’s the G forces!”
Shatner: “It’s the G forces. And you’re thinking ‘what’s going to happen to me? Am I going to be able to survive the G forces?’ You feel that? Am I going to survive it? Good lord, just getting up the bloody [launch tower] gantry was enough. Oh my god, what an experience.”

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The U.S. government will rely heavily on pediatricians in its Covid vaccine rollout for kids 5 to 11, starting as early as next month, White House official Jeff Zients said.
The White House asked governors to enroll doctors in vaccination programs so they can begin giving shots as soon as the lower-dose vaccine is authorized by regulators for use in young kids.
“If it is authorized by the FDA and CDC, we will be ready,” Zients said. “We have the supply.”

Bridgette Melo, 5, prepares for her inoculation of one of two reduced 10 ug doses of the Pfizer BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine during a trial at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina September 28, 2021 in a still image from video.
Shawn Rocco | Duke University | via Reuters

The U.S. government will rely heavily on pediatricians and family doctors in its Covid-19 vaccine rollout for kids ages 5 to 11, starting as early as next month, White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients said Wednesday.
The White House has asked governors to enroll pediatricians and other providers in vaccination programs so they can begin administering shots as soon as the doses are authorized by U.S. regulators for use in young kids, Zients told reporters.

Federal health officials have also asked states to plan to implement outreach and education campaigns, Zients said, and ensure Covid vaccination sites are available in areas of “high social vulnerability” and in rural areas.

CNBC Health & Science

“If it is authorized by the FDA and CDC, we will be ready,” Zients said during a press briefing on the pandemic. “We have the supply. I want to emphasize it’s a different supply; the dose for kids is a different dose than adults.”
Parents say they are anxious to get their children vaccinated as kids have started the new school year with the delta variant still surging across America. The number of new Covid cases in kids remains exceptionally high, with more than 750,000 child cases added over the past four weeks, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
For the week ending Oct. 7, children accounted for 24.8% of reported weekly Covid cases, even though they make up about 22% of the U.S. population, according to the group. Children’s infections represent 16.3% of all Covid cases since the pandemic began, the academy said. 
Pfizer asked the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday to authorize the Covid vaccine the drugmaker developed with BioNTech for kids ages 5 to 11.

The company submitted data that showed a two-dose regimen of 10 micrograms — one-third of the dosage used for adults and kids 12 and up — is safe and generates a strong immune response in a clinical trial of young children. It said the shots were well tolerated and produced an immune response and side effects comparable with those seen in a study of people ages 16 to 25.
Vaccinations for young kids could begin in early November, pending a favorable review by regulators, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said Wednesday.
A key FDA vaccine advisory committee is scheduled to meet Oct. 26 to discuss Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine data on kids, followed by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory group meeting on Nov. 2. If all goes well, the doses could be distributed within days of the November meeting, he told reporters.

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