Biden rejects Putin’s ‘ridiculous comparison’ between Capitol rioters and Alexei Navalny at summit – as it happened

Scientists in the United States are anxiously watching the Delta variant of Covid-19, as it spreads through an unevenly vaccinated American public and an economy that is rapidly reopening.

The Delta variant, first identified as B.1.617.2 in India, is believed to be more transmissible than both the original strain of Covid-19 and the Alpha strain, first identified in the United Kingdom.

“We’ve moved [Delta] to the top of our list of variants to study,” said Andrew Pekosz, a professor in Johns Hopkins University’s molecular microbiology and immunology department, and an expert in how viruses interact with the respiratory system.

“The data out of the UK showing how quickly the Delta variant became the dominant variant there is strong evidence that it is more transmissible than the Alpha variant, which we already thought was more transmissible than the original lineages,” said Pekosz.

The Delta variant is spreading at an uncertain time in the US. Covid-19 cases have fallen far below the winter peak, from an average of more than 250,000 new diagnoses a day in January to about 14,000 a day in June. Fewer cases have coincided with fewer hospitalizations and deaths.

This has led state after state to lift all social distancing guidelines, including in California, which gave the green light to large indoor gatherings such as sporting events. Now, social distancing and mask requirements are largely operating on the honor system.

But, even as pandemic guidelines recede, Delta has roughly doubled every two weeks in the US, a pattern once followed by Alpha, the variant first discovered in the UK, which eventually came to represent the vast majority of new US infections. The Delta variant has also delayed the UK’s planned reopening.

According to the CDC, at the end of May Alpha represented almost 70% of infections in the US. But in mid-March, it represented only 26% of cases. Similarly, Delta once represented only 2.5% of cases of Covid-19 by mid-May. But two weeks before that, it represented only 1.3% of cases. Again, two weeks before that in April, it represented just 0.6% of cases.

The doubling of cases has led some, such as the former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb, to predict that Delta may represent as much as 10% of US cases by mid-June.

The CDC officially elevated Delta to a “variant of concern” this week. A “variant of concern” designation puts Delta in the same category of increased surveillance as Alpha and Gamma (the variant first identified in Brazil).

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1) The weird and unpredictable Trump era is over. In 2018 Donald Trump held a disastrous summit with Putin in the Finnish capital Helsinki. The then US president said he believed Putin’s assurances that Moscow did not interfere in the 2016 US election with a joint press conference that was so humiliating for America that Trump’s senior adviser Fiona Hill considered bringing it to a close by whacking a fire alarm or faking a medical emergency.

In Geneva, by contrast, cool normality was on display. Biden was well prepared for the US-Russia summit. He cut a relaxed figure, telling Putin he wanted a “predictable” relationship after a period defined by rogue Kremlin behaviour. The summit flowed along conventional diplomatic lines: a handshake, several hours of intensive talks and separate press conferences afterwards. The ghost of Helsinki was exorcised. There will be an agreed record of what was discussed, unlike in 2018 when Trump met Putin alone, without aides or even Trump’s own interpreter. We don’t know what was said.

2) Putin’s view of Washington is (still) negative. Over the last two decades he has met five serving American presidents. Throughout Putin has nursed a list of geopolitical grudges: Nato expansion, alleged US meddling in Russia’s internal affairs, and its “hypocritical” behaviour as shown in Iraq and elsewhere. On Wednesday Putin hit back at claims Moscow was behind cyber-hacking, and suggested Russia wasn’t even on a list of nations responsible. He also complained about the “bloody coup” in Ukraine in 2014, which he believes the US instigated.

As in cold war times, Putin sees America as an adversary and global rival. The Geneva summit allowed Putin to present himself at home as Biden’s equal on the international stage. Despite modest progress at the talks, Putin is unlikely to yield to US pressure. He will continue to repress opponents and made clear he has no sympathy with the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Nor will he make concessions over Ukraine, a country intrinsic to Russia’s “great power” ideology and which Putin sees as his back yard. In recent years the Kremlin has waged a deniable almost-war against the west, featuring cyber-attacks, political interference and flamboyant state murder. Expect these wrecking tactics to continue.

3) The summit achieved some concrete results. Expectations ahead of Wednesday’s meeting were low given the poor state of bilateral relations. In the end, the obvious and easy “deliverables” were achieved. One was to normalise the situation of Russia and America’s ambassadors. The Russian ambassador to Washington was recalled after Biden described Putin as a “killer”. The US envoy to Moscow, John Sullivan, also went back in April to the US. Both will now return to their respective embassies, allowing diplomatic life to resume.

There will also be consultations between the US state department and the Russian foreign ministry on a range of issues including the Start III nuclear treaty, due to expire in 2024, and cybersecurity. Seemingly there was no progress in the cases of former marines Trevor Reed and Paul Whelan, both sentenced to long jail terms in Moscow on dubious charges. The Kremlin has offered to swap the two Americans for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot charged by the US with drug smuggling.

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A group of 18 legal academics has issued an extraordinary joint letter urging US supreme court justice Stephen Breyer to retire so that Joe Biden can name his successor.

The intervention came after Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader in the Senate, warned that Biden will not get a supreme court nominee confirmed in 2024 if Republicans regain control of the chamber and a vacancy arises. McConnell also indicated that he would not confirm a justice in 2023.

With conservatives holding a 6-3 majority on the court, progressives have been calling for the liberal Breyer, who at 82 is the oldest member on the bench, to step down while Democrats narrowly control the Senate.

“It is time for supreme court justice Stephen Breyer to announce his intent to retire,” the legal scholars say in a statement. “Breyer is a remarkable jurist, but with future control of a closely divided Senate uncertain, it is best for the country that President Biden have the opportunity to nominate a successor without delay.”

The signatories include Niko Bowie of Harvard Law School, Erwin Chemerinsky and David Singh Grewal of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, Daniel Morales of the University of Houston Law Center, Samuel Moyn of Yale Law School, Zephyr Teachout of Fordham University and Miranda Yaver of Oberlin College.

The statement was released by Demand Justice, a progressive group mounting a concerted campaign to make Breyer consider his position, with everything from reproductive rights to voting rights and gun control potentially at stake.

This week it is among 13 liberal groups, including Black Lives Matter, the Sunrise Movement and Women’s March, publishing an advertisement in prominent media outlets. It says: “Supreme court justice Stephen Breyer should immediately announce his intent to retire from the bench.

“With future control of a closely divided Senate uncertain, President Biden must have the opportunity to nominate a successor without delay and fulfill his pledge to put the first Black woman on the supreme court.”

The ad concludes: “If Breyer were replaced by an additional ultra-conservative justice, an even further-right supreme court would leave our democracy and the rights of marginalised communities at even greater risk. For the good of the country, now is the time to step aside.”