In photos: Meet the U.S. health care workers on the pandemic frontlines
13 December 2020
The first trucks carrying the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for distribution in the U.S. were being prepared to leave a Michigan manufacturing plant Sunday, offering hope that a mass rollout will alleviate the strain on hospitals and medical staff.
The big picture: Coronavirus hospitalizations are soaring and surging case numbers surpassed 16 million Saturday. Some 3 million vaccine doses are being distributed this week. Health care workers are being prioritized for inoculations. NIAID director Anthony Fauci stressed to Axios there's still a fair way to go, with 75%–80% of Americans needing to get vaccinated.
Healthcare workers carry signs in support of resident physicians, interns and fellows at UCLA Health as they protest for improved COVID-19 testing and workplace safety policies outside of UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, Dec. 9. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
Medical staff members dance to a Christmas song at nursing station in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas, on Dec. 10. Photo: Go Nakamura/Getty Images
A nurse writes a note to communicate with staff outside the room of a Covid-19 positive patient at UMass Memorial Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts on Dec. 4. Photo: Allison Dinner/AFP via Getty Images
A testing site in a parking lot at Bergen Community College run by Bergen County and the Bergen New Bridge Medical Center on Dec. 3, 2020 in Paramus, New Jersey. Photo: David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
Health care workers prepare COVID-19 tests to hand out to people who self-administer the tests at Long Beach City College-Veterans Memorial Stadium on Wednesday, Dec. 9 in Long Beach, California. Photo: Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
A staff member holds a bag of appreciation gifts during a Christmas party at the Goodwin House senior living community center in Arlington, Virginia, on Dec. 10. Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
Go deeper: Hospitals prepare to vaccinate workers
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.