11 February 2021
The federal government secured deals for another 200 million doses of coronavirus vaccine, President Biden announced Thursday during a tour of the National Institutes of Health.
Why it matters: Biden said the U.S. is on track to have enough supply of the vaccine for 300 million Americans by the end of July. That comes out to roughly 600 million doses, boosting "supply in the United States by 50 percent," as first reported by the Washington Post.
Context: The Biden administration said last month that it planned to buy an addition 100 million doses each of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.
What they're saying: "We need more people to get vaccinated to beat this pandemic," Biden said Thursday.
- "We've now purchased enough vaccine supply to vaccinate all Americans, and now we're working to get those vaccines into the arms of people."
Of note: It's unlikely the purchase will make the vaccine widely available sooner than originally planned, but it may prevent shortages later this year, per the Post.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.