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U.S. is ahead of pace on COVID vaccines

04 March 2021
Dan Ackermann

The U.S. is now vaccinating an average of 2 million people a day, up from 1.3 million in early February.

Why it matters: That puts us on track to hit President Biden's goal of 100 million doses a month ahead of schedule.

The big picture: "54 million people have received at least one dose," the N.Y. Times reports.

Mega-sites and around-the-clock operations are kicking in:

  • New York will open three mass vaccination sites on Friday, and three more sites will go around-the-clock.
  • Georgia is also preparing to open five sites in two weeks.
  • FEMA has seven sites of its own in California, New York and Texas, the Times notes, with more on the way.

What's next: Parents with children and younger teens are anxious to know when they can all get vaccinated — but the reality is that they may not be able to get their whole family protected for months, per Axios' managing editor David Nather.

  • Pfizer and Moderna both have completed enrollment for studies of children ages 12 and older, and they expect to release the data over the summer, the AP reports.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly 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.