Bipartisan group of senators urges Blinken to vaccinate Americans abroad
24 June 2021
Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) are leading an effort urging the Biden administration to coordinate with the Defense Department to donate supplemental COVID-19 vaccine doses to U.S. embassies and consulates.
Why it matters: Millions of Americans living in countries where they are not considered eligible for the vaccine or those living in places where vaccines are not being authorized by the FDA or the World Health Organization may have to wait for months or even years to receive a vaccine.
Driving the news: Murphy and Moran, along with a group of 24 bipartisan senators, wrote a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken Thursday outlining their request.
- They urge Blinken to coordinate with the Defense Department to administer vaccines to the nine million Americans living abroad.
Of note: While the State Department has vaccinated tens of thousands of foreign service personnel, along with their families, the Defense Department administered more than 1 million doses across more than 80 international facilities globally.
The big picture: The U.S. is closer each day to approaching President Biden’s target goal of vaccinating 70% of adults in the nation.
- But the vaccination rate abroad is starkly different depending on the location.
- The senators underscore in their letter that 85% of shots administered so far have been in high- and upper-middle-income countries, while only 0.3% of doses have been administered in low-income countries.
- They make the point that while Americans living abroad might wish to travel to the U.S. to be vaccinated, they may have to worry about the financial burden of travel, in addition to quarantine requirements when they return to their host country.
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.