Biden sets new April 19 deadline for all adults to be eligible for COVID vaccine
06 April 2021
President Biden will announce Tuesday that he is moving up the deadline for states to make all American adults eligible for a coronavirus vaccine to April 19, CNN first reported and Axios has confirmed.
Why it matters: The announcement means all Americans will be eligible for the vaccine two weeks earlier than the original May 1 deadline, reflecting a growing confidence in the U.S. vaccination campaign.
- Biden will also announce that the U.S. has administered 150 million coronavirus vaccine doses in the first 75 days of his presidency.
- Biden set a new goal of 200 million doses in his first 100 days last month after it became clear that the U.S. was far outpacing his initial goal of 100 million doses.
Between the states: Hawaii and Oregon will be the only two states pressured to move up their deadline, as they previously planned on making all adults eligible by May 1, according to a New York Times tracker. All other states have already met or are scheduled to meet Biden's April 19 deadline.
The big picture: At the White House COVID-19 response team's briefing Monday, officials announced that the U.S. is now administering an average of 3.1 million vaccine shots per day. States administered a record of more than 4 million doses in a single day over the weekend.
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.