Fauci: Timeline for widespread COVID-19 vaccine availability delayed to May
16 February 2021
Most Americans will be able to get their coronavirus vaccines between the middle of May and early June, President Biden's chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci told CNN on Tuesday.
Why it matters: That timeframe is slightly delayed from Fauci's previous projection of late March to early April, and comes after Johnson & Johnson failed to meet its promised supply timetable due to lags in production.
What he’s saying: "It may take until June, July and August to finally get everybody vaccinated," Fauci said. "So when you hear about how long it’s going to take to get the overwhelming proportion of the population vaccinated, I don’t think anybody disagrees that that’s going to be well to the end of the summer and we get into the early fall."
- The U.S. government is expecting "considerably more" doses from J&J, which recently applied for emergency authorization, Fauci noted.
- The U.S. has purchased 100 million vaccine doses from J&J.
- But demand is still outpacing supply, which Fauci called "a critical issue."
- "I’m a little disappointed that the number of doses that we’re going to get early on from J&J are relatively small, but as we get further into the spring there will be more and more."
The big picture: Vaccine distribution is so far restricted to essential workers, people ages 65 and older and those with underlying health conditions, depending on the state.
- State health officials have repeatedly called on the federal government to provide a more robust supply of vaccines.
- Some mass vaccination sites have had to delay operations due to a shortage in vaccines, per CNBC.
Go deeper: Why vaccine production is taking so long
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.