Florida sets pandemic record with more than 21,000 new COVID cases in one day as Gov Ron DeSantis continues to resist mask mandates - and blames hot weather and air conditioning for spread

• Florida on Saturday reported 21,683 new cases of COVID-19
• The figure is the highest ever reported in the state throughout the pandemic 
• Saturday's case load beats the January 7 record of 19,334 cases
• Governor Ron DeSantis is refusing to bring in mask mandates indoors
• He says the surge is due to people inside in hot weather with air conditioning 

By ASSOCIATED PRESS and HARRIET ALEXANDER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM-31 July 2021

Florida on Saturday reported 21,683 new cases of COVID-19 - the state's highest one-day total since the start of the pandemic - as its theme park resorts again started asking visitors to wear masks indoors.

The figure breaks the record set on January 7, when 19,334 cases reported - before the availability of vaccinations became widespread.

The state has become the new national epicenter for the virus, accounting for around a fifth of all new cases in the US as the highly contagious delta variant continues to spread.

Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, has resisted mandatory mask mandates and vaccine requirements, and along with the state Legislature, has limited local officials' ability to impose restrictions meant to stop the spread of COVID-19. 

Motorists in Orlando, Florida, line up for testing on Thursday. Friday saw 21,683 new cases of COVID-19 - the highest total of the whole pandemic, breaking a record set in January

People attend a mobile COVID-19 vaccination event at the downtown Orlando campus of the University of Central Florida and Valencia College, on July 24

A group waits to get a COVID-19 test on Saturday in North Miami. The state has become the new national epicenter for the virus, accounting for around a fifth of all new cases in the U.S.

Raquel Heres gets a COVID-19 rapid test to be able to travel overseas in North Miami on Saturday

 

A look at Florida where 21,683 people tested positive

 

DeSantis on Friday barred school districts from requiring students to wear masks when classes resume next month.

The latest numbers were recorded on Friday and released on Saturday on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website. 

 

The figures show how quickly the number of cases is rising in the Sunshine State: only a day earlier, Florida reported 17,093 new daily cases.  

The state reported 409 deaths this week, bringing the total to more than 39,000 since its first in March 2020. 

The state's peak happened in mid-August 2020, when 1,266 people died over a seven-day period. 

Deaths usually follow increases in hospitalizations by a few weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

COVID-19 vaccinations are up 30 percent as Delta spreads

 

 

DeSantis has blamed the surge on a seasonal increase, because more Floridians are indoors because of the hot weather, and he says air conditioning circulates the virus. 

About 60 percent of Floridians 12 and older are vaccinated, ranking it about midway among the states.

The Florida Hospital Association said Friday that statewide COVID-19 hospitalizations are nearing last year's peak, and one of the state's largest health care systems, AdventHealth's Central Florida Division, this week advised it would no longer be conducting nonemergency surgeries in order to free up resources for COVID-19 patients.

Universal Orlando Resort and SeaWorld on Saturday became the latest theme park resorts in Florida to again ask visitors to wear masks indoors, with Universal also ordering its employees to wear face coverings to protect against COVID-19, which has been surging across the state.

All workers at Universal's Florida park on Saturday started being required to wear masks while indoors as the employees returned to practicing social distancing. 

Cars line up at Miami Dade College North campus' COVID-19 testing site on Thursday

Universal Orlando Resort and SeaWorld are the latest theme park resorts in Florida to again ask visitors to wear masks indoors, with Universal also ordering its employees to wear face coverings to protect against COVID-19

The home to Harry Potter and Despicable Me rides also asked visitors to follow federal and local health guidelines by voluntarily wearing face coverings indoors.

'The health and safety of our guests and team members is always our top priority,' Universal said in a statement.

Health officials on Friday announced that coronavirus cases in Florida had jumped 50 percent over the past week with COVID-19 hospitalizations in the state nearing last year's peak.

SeaWorld on Saturday posted on its website that it was recommending that visitors follow recently updated federal recommendations and wear face coverings while indoors.

The change in policy this week at the theme park resorts came after the CDC recommended that everyone wear masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status.

Walt Disney World started requiring employees and guests older than 2 to wear masks on Friday, but it also went a step further. 

The Walt Disney Co. said in a statement that it will be requiring all salaried and non-union hourly employees in the US who work on site to be fully vaccinated.

Disney employees who are not already vaccinated will have 60 days to do so and those still working from home will need to show proof of vaccination before returning. 

Disney said it was discussing the vaccine requirements with the union, and added that all new hires will be required to be fully vaccinated before starting work at the company.

Variants and Vaccines

Photograph Source: Travis Wise – CC BY 2.0

BY SEIJI YAMADA-JULY 29, 2021

In late 2020 the British noticed that coronavirus cases were spiraling upward in the region of Kent. The culprit turned out to be a variant of the COVID-19 virus identified in September, Mutations in the genetic make-up, the RNA, lead to variants. They are still COVID-19 viruses, but they can behave differently. The variant first identified in Kent, UK (scientific name B.1.1.7, WHO name Alpha) is more infectious than the original strain which emerged from Wuhan, China.

The number of other people that each infected person infects is called the basic reproduction number, or R0 (“R naught”), in epidemiological parlance. It’s a measure of the biological characteristics of an infectious agent, but it can be affected by social and environmental conditions and human behavior (e.g. crowding vs. social distancing, ventilation, facemasks). The R0 of seasonal influenza is 1.3. The R0 of measles is around 15. As it emerged in Wuhan, the R0 of the original COVID-19 strain was 2.4—2.6. The R0 of the Alpha variant is 4 to 5.

The Beta variant (scientific name B.1.351) arose in South Africa in October 2020. It was found that the AstraZeneca vaccine was ineffective against the Beta strain – leading to a pause in its use there in February 2021. (The AstraZeneca vaccine may make a comeback in South Africa, since it is effective against the Delta strain, which is poised to become dominant there.)

The Gamma variant (scientific name P.1) arose in Brazil in December 2020. Manaus, in the Amazon, had had a severe epidemic of COVID-19 during 2020, such that it was estimated that 50% of its residents had been infected by October 2020. In December, Manaus experienced a second wave, more severe than the first, during which the Gamma strain was detected. Of note, Gamma caused infections in individuals who had been previously infected – demonstrating that an infection with one strain of COVID-19 might not lead to immunity against a different strain.

The Delta variant (scientific name B.1.617.2) was responsible for the April-June 2021 second wave in India. At its peak, India was recording nearly 400,000 cases and over 4000 deaths per day, believed to be a severe undercount. The true cases may have been over a million per day, and true deaths may have been 10 to 15,000 per day. Between January and June 2021, 3 to 4.7 million excess deaths occurred in India. The Delta variant has a R0 of 5 to 8. Each case of Delta leads to 5 to 8 more cases. An infected individual is likely to infect everybody else in the household. This gives it an evolutionary advantage over even the Alpha variant. The WHO declared Delta a “variant of concern” on May 10. By mid-July Delta was the dominant variant in the U.S.

A study involving 4272 cases of Delta from Public Health England (published July 21 in the New England Journal of Medicine) concluded that two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 88% effective and  that two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine was 67% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19. (One dose of Pfizer was only 35.6% effective against Delta.) In contrast, according to Israeli data from mid-June to mid-July 2021, the Pfizer vaccine was only 39% effective in preventing COVID-19 infection, but this data has not been published in the peer-reviewed literature. Of note, however, vaccination was 91.4% effective in preventing severe COVID-19. On July 22, Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer announced that 20% of the COVID-19 cases in LA County over the past month were breakthrough infections in individuals who had been fully vaccinated.

Parts of the world that have vaccinated their populations with the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines from China are experiencing outbreaks. Indonesia, which is currently experiencing a major Delta wave, has relied on vaccines from China.

While the currently available mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) are not quite as effective against Delta as it was against the original COVID-19 virus, they nevertheless prevent hospitalization and death. Currently, in the U.S., 97% of those hospitalized with coronavirus and 99.5% of those dying from coronavirus are unvaccinated. Clearly, we must continue to promote vaccination.

Delta has put “herd immunity” nearly out of reach, however. The percentage of the population that needs to be immune [whether from vaccine immunity or from infection with the original virus (I hesitate to say “wild type”) or a prior variant] to achieve herd immunity is derived from R0. From the estimate that the original COVID-19 strain had an R0=2.5, the

% needed to achieve herd immunity = 1 – 1/R0 = 1 – 0.4 = 60%

which is close to (though a little less than) 70%. This is the basis for government officials telling us that we need to vaccinate 70% of the population. Since the R0 of Delta is estimated to be from 5 to 8, using R0=6,

% needed to achieve herd immunity = 1 – 1/R0 = 1 – 0.17 = 83%

The next variant of concern (or the one after, or the one after that . . . twenty letters left to go in the Greek alphabet) may not only be as contagious as Delta. It may also more easily escape vaccine immunity (like Beta with AstraZeneca) or natural immunity (like Gamma). It is entirely plausible that vaccines will need to be reformulated to match future variants.

As difficult as it may be to achieve, we must continue to try to achieve herd immunity. In the U.S., FDA approval will allow employers and schools to mandate vaccines. During the current Delta wave, because of breakthrough infections, even the vaccinated should maintain social distancing and wear masks indoors. With businesses pressuring government officials not to impose lockdowns, it will be up to the informed to take measures on their own.

The current Delta wave will also pass. Many will die, but because many of the elderly and infirm have been vaccinated, not as many as in the dark days of January. Since the beginning of COVID-19, the epidemic curves of the U.S. and the U.K. have been shaped similarly. Of course, the U.S. has five times the population of the U.K. (331.4 million vs 68.2 million), so its absolute numbers of cases has generally been approximately five times that of the U.K. – except since late June, when Delta, which hit the U.K. earlier, gave the U.K. an absolute number of daily cases higher than that of the U.S. During the Delta wave, the daily cases in the U.K. approached those of its worst days in early January. The U.K.’s Delta wave appears to have peaked, however. The U.S.’s Delta wave is still in its exponential climb.

Regardless of what the future may bring, the task at hand is to deliver life-saving vaccines to the world. To stave off more India-like disasters around the world, we must support an accelerating, global Covid immunization campaign. The Biden Administration’s decision to support the suspension of intellectual property rights for vaccine manufacturing was a step in the right direction. On June 9, the US announced that it will purchase and donate 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine. This is clearly inadequate when fewer than 5 doses per 100 people have been administered in Africa (total population 1.34 billion). U.S. taxpayers subsidized the development of the mRNA vaccines. It is a travesty that Pharma profits so handsomely from public investment. Life-saving vaccines are public goods that belong to the people.

Seiji Yamada, a native of Hiroshima, is a family physician practicing and teaching in Hawaii.

To Fight Vaccine Lies, Authorities Recruit an ‘Influencer Army’

The White House has teamed up with TikTok stars, while some states are paying “local micro influencers” for pro-vaccine campaigns.

Ellie Zeiler, 17, a TikTok creator, at her home in Escondido, Calif.Credit...Maggie Shannon for The New York Times

By Taylor Lorenz-Aug. 1, 2021, 4:25 p.m. ET

LOS ANGELES — Ellie Zeiler, 17, a TikTok creator with over 10 million followers, received an email in June from Village Marketing, an influencer marketing agency. It said it was reaching out on behalf of another party: the White House.

Would Ms. Zeiler, a high school senior who usually posts short fashion and lifestyle videos, be willing, the agency wondered, to participate in a White House-backed campaign encouraging her audience to get vaccinated against the coronavirus?

“There is a massive need to grow awareness within the 12-18 age range,” Village Marketing wrote to Ms. Zeiler’s business email. “We’re moving fast and have only a few available slots to fill, so please let us know ASAP.”

Ms. Zeiler quickly agreed, joining a broad, personality-driven campaign to confront an increasingly urgent challenge in the fight against the pandemic: vaccinating the youthful masses, who have the lowest inoculation rates of any eligible age group in the United States.

Fewer than half of all Americans age 18 to 39 are fully vaccinated, compared with more than two-thirds of those over 50, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And about 58 percent of those age 12 through 17 have yet to receive a shot at all.

To reach these young people, the White House has enlisted an eclectic army of more than 50 Twitch streamers, YouTubers, TikTokers and the 18-year-old pop star Olivia Rodrigo, all of them with enormous online audiences. State and local governments have begun similar campaigns, in some cases paying “local micro influencers” — those with 5,000 to 100,000 followers — up to $1,000 a month to promote Covid-19 vaccines to their fans.

 

Image

“I didn’t worry about the backlash,” said Christina Najjar, 30, a TikTok star known online as Tinx.Credit...Alyson Aliano for The New York Times

“The anti-vaccine side of the internet is still set on all this vaccine news,” said Samir Mezrahi, the administrator of several “meme pages” such as Kale Salad, which has nearly 4 million followers on Instagram and posts viral videos and other content. “We’re posting about J. Lo and Ben Affleck.”

Renee DiResta, a researcher who studies misinformation at the Stanford Internet Observatory, said that while influencer campaigns can be useful, they may be no match for mass, organic online movements. She noted the contrast between creators who have been asked to spread pro-vaccine messaging versus vaccine skeptics, who have made it a personal mission to question the injections.

“That’s the asymmetric passion,” she said. “People who believe it’s going to hurt you are out there talking about it everyday. They’re driving hashtags and pushing content and doing everything they can do.”

But even if the influencer campaigns amount to a sprinkler in a wildfire, some creators said, they felt compelled to join in.

“I didn’t worry about the backlash,” said Christina Najjar, 30, a TikTok star known online as Tinx. “Helping spread the word about the importance of getting vaccinated was the right thing to do.”

Ms. Najjar said she was thrilled when the White House reached out to her through her manager in June. She soon posted a question-and-answer video about the vaccines with Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Instagram.

Their banter was light. Discussing what she called a “happy vaxx girl summer,” Ms. Najjar peppered Dr. Fauci with questions: Was it safe to go out for a drink? Should we be concerned about getting pregnant after getting the vaccine? Do I look 26? “You have an ageless look to you,” he replied.

“I’ll tell my Botox doctor that,” she said.

Ms. Najjar called the session “a great time,” adding, “I think I flirted with Dr. Fauci, but in a respectful way.” A White House official said Dr. Fauci was not available for comment.------------------------------

Public health officials have used celebrities to reach people since Elvis Presley rolled up his sleeve on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1956 to get the polio vaccine. These days, young people are more likely to trust the advice of their favorite content creator than a mainstream celebrity, according to a 2018 study by the marketing agency MuseFind.

 

As a result, “we need to get an influencer army to push the pro-vaccine message out there,” said Jason Harris, chief executive of the advertising agency Mekanism, which is an authority on influencer marketing. “That’s the only way we’re going to have loud enough voices on social to drown out all the misinfo that’s happening.”

The White House began considering the power of online creators in January, repurposing the influencer marketing tactics that Mr. Biden had used on the campaign trail toward promoting vaccinations, said Rob Flaherty, the White House director of digital strategy.

Mr. Flaherty said he and Clarke Humphrey, the White House’s Covid-19 digital director, teamed up with Village Marketing and Made to Save, a national campaign aimed at promoting access to coronavirus vaccines. In June, they hosted several off-the-record briefings over Zoom so online creators could ask questions about the vaccines and how they worked.

Since then, the Biden administration has rolled out influencer discussions with Dr. Fauci and brought Ms. Rodrigo to the White House, where she urged people to “actually get to a vaccination site.”

The 18-year-old pop star Olivia Rodrigo was recently tapped by the White House to persuade the youthful masses to get vaccinated.Credit...White House, via Reuters

In March, the White House also orchestrated an Instagram Live chat between Dr. Fauci and Eugenio Derbez, a Mexican actor with over 16.6 million Instagram followers who had been openly doubtful of the vaccines. During their 37-minute discussion, Mr. Derbez was upfront about his concerns.

“What if I get the vaccine, but it doesn’t protect me against the new variant?” he asked. Dr. Fauci acknowledged that the vaccines might not completely shield people from variants, but said, “It’s very, very good at protecting you from getting seriously ill.”

Mr. Flaherty said the whole point of the campaign was to be “a positive information effort.”

State and local governments have taken the same approach, though on a smaller scale and sometimes with financial incentives.

In February, Colorado awarded a contract worth up to $16.4 million to the Denver-based Idea Marketing, which includes a program to pay creators in the state $400 to $1,000 a month to promote the vaccines.

Jessica Bralish, the communications director at Colorado’s public health department, said influencers were being paid because “all too often, diverse communities are asked to reach out to their communities for free. And to be equitable, we know we must compensate people for their work.”

As part of the effort, influencers have showed off where on their arms they were injected, using emojis and selfies to punctuate the achievement. “I joined the Pfizer club,” Ashley Cummins, a fashion and style influencer in Boulder, Colo., recently announced in a smiling selfie while holding her vaccine card. She added a mask emoji and an applause emoji.

“Woohoo! This is so exciting!” one fan commented.

Posts by creators in the campaign carry a disclosure that reads “paid partnership with Colorado Dept. of Public Health and Environment.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Tinx (@itsmetinx)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ashley Cummins ♥ Style Blogger (@ashleymarieblog_)

Patricia Lepiani, president of Idea Marketing, said local micro influencers are in demand because they can seem more authentic than national social media stars. “Vaccination campaigns will only be effective if you know your community,” she said.

Colorado officials recently said the state has just two months left to use 350,000 doses of stockpiled Covid-19 vaccines before they expire.

Other places, including New Jersey, Oklahoma City County and Guildford County, N.C., as well as cities like San Jose, Calif., have worked with the digital marketing agency XOMAD, which identifies local influencers who can help broadcast public health information about the vaccines.

Governments’ interest in the campaigns has spiked sharply in the past week, said Rob Perry, chief executive of XOMAD, as concerns have grown about the spread of the Delta variant of the virus. He added that “when large numbers of influencers post in the same time period, vaccination rates go up.”

Ms. Zeiler, who signed on to the White House-backed campaign, also had an online conversation with Dr. Anthony S. Fauci in June.Credit...Maggie Shannon for The New York Times

For Ms. Zeiler, the TikTok star, things moved quickly after she signed on to the White House-backed vaccination campaign. In June, she held an online conversation with Dr. Fauci, using the time to squash the false rumor that vaccines cause infertility. It was a conspiracy theory that she had heard from friends and that she had seen videos of on her TikTok “For You” page.

“When I saw that I was like, OK, I need to ask him about it,” she said. “It was kind of sad to see him be like, no, that’s not true.”

Ms. Zeiler has since used her footage with Dr. Fauci for other platforms, including Instagram, and created original content for YouTube promoting the vaccines. In one 47-second video, she spoke directly into the camera, ticking through the reasons she had gotten vaccinated and why others should too. “Reason one,” she declared, was “you can go wherever you want.”

Ms. Zeiler said in an interview that her work was not done. “I know I won’t stop until all my followers are safe and vaccinated,” she said.

 

David Cameron met vaccines minister before firm he advises won health contracts

Exclusive: Ex-PM met the vaccines minister to discuss genome sequencing – two months before the genome firm he advises won contracts worth £870,000

David Cameron met with vaccines minister Nadim Zahawi | Victoria Jones/PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo. All rights reserved

 

Martin Williams-30 July 2021

David Cameron met with the UK’s vaccine minister less than two months before a private health firm, which pays him for his advice, won £870,000-worth of public contracts.

The UK arm of Illumina Inc. was awarded two contracts relating to genome sequencing by Public Health England in late April.

But openDemocracy can reveal that Cameron discussed “UK genomics sequencing” with vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi on 1 March. Official disclosures also make it clear that Illumina was being represented at the meeting.

Cameron has previously claimed that his role at the company is simply to promote the benefits of genome sequencing, and that he does not lobby the government for contracts on Illumina’s behalf.

But questions have been raised previously about his role at the company. In 2019, Illumina secured a £123m contract the week after Cameron appeared at a genomics conference with the then health secretary Matt Hancock.

Cameron set up Genomics England, which is wholly owned by the department of health, during his time as prime minister. A £78m deal between Genomics England and Illumina was later announced.

Cameron visited Illumina’s headquarters in the US, shortly after resigning as prime minister in 2016, and “shared optimism for the opportunity for Illumina’s technology”. He was signed up as an adviser to the company in 2018, while also becoming chair of its international advisory board.

“David Cameron’s behaviour is evidence that the rules that are supposed to regulate lobbying are completely unfit for purpose and need a radical and urgent overhaul,” Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, told openDemocracy.

“There appears to be nobody in government who the former prime minister has not lobbied in an effort to enrich himself and his clients during this pandemic.”

David Cameron’s behaviour is evidence that the rules that are supposed to regulate lobbying are completely unfit for purpose

Angela Rayner

Russian police raid editor-in-chief of investigative online newspaper The Insider

Picture credit: Roman Dobrokhotov.

 

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  30-07-2021

Russian police took Roman Dobrokhotov, editor-in-chief of investigative media outlet The Insider, in for questioning over a slander case and searched his home on Wednesday 28 July. The formal reason for the search was a criminal libel case over a tweet with alleged “disinformation about the downed Boeing MH-17.”

Dobrokhotov posted his home address on Twitter and said police searches were under way there. The journalist’s work equipment was taken away: mobile phones, a laptop and a tablet, thereby endangering the confidentiality of his sources of information. In addition, Dobrokhotov’s foreign passport was seized, while he remains only a witness in a libel case.

The Insider, which the justice ministry last week labelled a “foreign agent”, has worked on an investigation into what Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny says was an attempt to kill him. The “foreign agent” label subjects those designated to extra government scrutiny and labelling requirements.

The Russian Journalists’ and Media Workers’ Union (JMWU) believes that, through these actions, the Russian Ministry of Justice and the security forces are trying to intimidate Roman Dobrokhotov and independent journalists. “The pressure exerted on Roman and the media he runs, under a totally outlandish pretext, is just another element of the authorities’ deliberate policy to totally eradicate investigative journalism,” said Andreï Jvirblis (JMWU).

“The Russian authorities use all means in their power to dissuade journalists from doing their job,” said EFJ President Mogens Blicher Bjerregård. “We condemn these coordinated attacks on independent media in Russia and demand the immediate return of the equipment seized from Roman Dobrokhotov”.

Bolivian Government Will Deliver Land Titles to Small Farmers

Published 30 July 2021

The Minister of Rural Development and Lands, Remmy Gonzales, announced that the celebration of the "Day of the Agrarian, Productive and Community Revolution" will be held on Monday, August 2 at the Municipal Stadium of San Julian, in Santa Cruz. | Photo: Twitter/@noticiasfides

The Bolivian government will deliver land titles to its peasants on the occasion of the Day of the Agrarian, Productive and Community Revolution, reported on Thursday the Minister of Rural Development, Remmy Gonzáles.

This celebration will take place on August 2, and according to the minister, at that time a list of decrees will also be prepared that will benefit all producers of the Andean-Amazonian nation.

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He explained that this important date is a celebration of the small, medium and large-scale producers of Bolivia, who not only strive to supply the national population with food, but also export surpluses.

"The Minister of Rural Development, Remmy Gonzales, announced the celebration of the "Agrarian, Productive and Community Revolution" Day, to be held this Monday, August 2 at the San Julián Municipal Stadium in #SantaCruz."
 

The commemoration for the Day of the Agrarian, Productive and Community Revolution in the South American country will be in the municipality of San Julián in the department of Santa Cruz, and President Luis Arce is expected to attend.

According to local media, among the organizations that will be present at the celebrations are the Single Trade Union Confederation of Peasant Workers and the Trade Union Confederation of Intercultural Communities Native to Bolivia, among others.

The Pegasus revelations cast doubt on the health of Indian democracy

The inclusion of prominent critics on a list of hacking targets embarrasses the government

Jul 31st 2021 edition

IN ANCIENT HINDU lore a winged horse emerges from the milky churn of primeval oceans to become the trusted mount of Indra, king of the heavens. A later tradition says it was instead Mahabali, lord of the demons, who rode the fabulous stallion. Both versions picture a creature strikingly like Pegasus, the flying horse of Greek myth, except that the Indian model is fancier. It sports not one but seven heads

 

Contemporary India’s most powerful men could have used those extra heads. Relying on Pegasus—not the mythical horse but a very modern brand of electronic spyware—they seem to have ridden recklessly into danger. A global investigation by a clutch of newspapers and NGOs, triggered by the leak of some 50,000 phone numbers in ten countries, casts the government of Narendra Modi in an ugly light as a presumed client of Pegasus’s Israeli creator, the NSO Group.

The evidence strongly suggests that Indian spooks may have slipped the eavesdropping software into the mobile phones of hundreds of unsuspecting fellow citizens. The problem is not just that the government may have broken Indian law to do so, or that it may have used the tool to pry on intimate private relations. Most disturbing, if true, is the choice of targets.

The leaked Pegasus file contains some 1,000 Indian numbers, around 150 of which have so far been identified. Only a handful belong to people who might conceivably endanger the state, such as activists in ethnic separatist groups. The list includes numbers used by some 40 journalists who share nothing but a critical stance towards Mr Modi’s government. Some belong to Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party, and his personal friends. Others belong to a political consultant credited with state-level wins against Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), and to a former top election official who had recommended penalising Mr Modi for flouting rules during the 2019 general election, as well as to members of his family. Figures from inside the government may have been targeted, too, among them at least two BJP ministers, senior civil servants and a number of senior security officers.

In another democracy, such a scandal could topple a government. Richard Nixon was disgraced for transgressions that are puny compared with what Pegasus is capable of and may already have been used for. But in Mr Modi’s India things are not so simple.

For sure, the liberal commentariat has erupted in predictable outrage, decrying the alleged snooping as a further lurch into dictatorship. Congress wants Amit Shah, the home minister, to resign. United for a change, opposition MPs have disrupted the lower house of Parliament for more than a week with calls for a debate and an investigation of Pegasus. Petitions have been submitted to the Supreme Court demanding an inquiry. One opposition-ruled state, West Bengal, has opened one of its own.

But the government, snug in its parliamentary majority, has so far refused any debate. Mr Modi as usual remains aloof, leaving it to spokesmen to deny any link to Pegasus. BJP attack dogs dismiss the affair as a malicious hoax. Most of India’s press, beholden in one way or another to government influence, has obediently played the story down.

No wonder they stayed in line. Dainik Bhaskar is a media group with newspapers widely read in the Hindi-speaking heartlands where the BJP dominates and which have recently been critical of the government’s handling of covid-19. After they put the scandal on the front page, tax inspectors raided the company.

Perhaps, as so often in Mr Modi’s seven-year tenure, cries for accountability will be drowned in India’s turbulent public life. Attention has indeed already shifted to new dramas, such as a land dispute between two BJP-ruled states that erupted into shooting on July 26th, leaving five policemen dead. But it would be sad for India to miss this chance to patch some of the holes in its democracy.

India’s spooks have operated behind an unusually thick veil of secrecy since long before Mr Modi began to gather undue executive powers. The Intelligence Bureau, one of several security agencies, was created in 1887 to snuff out opposition to the British Raj. Its functions seem to have scarcely changed. It is cocooned from democratic oversight.

Alas, in the age of Mr Modi, to call for greater public scrutiny, if only by empowering a parliamentary committee to monitor intelligence officials, seems as fanciful as to dream of winged horses.