Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine to get full FDA approval next week
20 August 2021
The Food and Drug Administration is expected to grant full approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine early next week, sources told Axios on Friday.
Why it matters: It would be the first COVID-19 shot to receive full authorization from the federal government.
- A full approval could help boost vaccination efforts, as many Americans have been hesitant to get inoculated with shots that were only authorized for emergency use.
- Politico first reported the story.
The big picture: The U.S. is currently battling a resurgence of the virus, driven by the more contagious Delta variant. The Biden administration said earlier this week that fully vaccinated Americans should expect to be offered a booster shot eight months after getting their second shot starting in September.
- "Approving the vaccine and encouraging boosters at the same time may suggest to some that the vaccine as licensed is inadequate without an extra shot," the New York Times writes.
By the numbers: 51.2% of the entire American population has been fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- The United States has reported more than 37 million confirmed virus cases and over 624,000 deaths, per the CDC.
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.