Day 29: "I'm tired of talking about Donald Trump." - a podcast by Matt Kiser

1/ Biden suggested that anyone in the country who wants a vaccine should be able to get one “by the end of July.” Jeff Zients, White House COVID-19 response coordinator, said in a task force briefing that “We are on track to have enough vaccine supply for 300 million Americans by the end of July.” The U.S. has averaged 1.64 million doses a day over the last week and about 56.3 million total doses have been administered. If the pace of vaccination stays where it is now, Biden’s initial goal of 100 million Covid-19 vaccine shots in the first 100 days of his presidency would be met in late March – around Day 67 of his presidency. (New York Times / USA Today / The Guardian)

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  ? Dept. of “We Have It Totally Under Control.”

  
  


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  Global: Total confirmed cases: ~109,837,000; deaths: ~2,428,000

  
  


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  U.S.: Total confirmed cases: ~27,812,000; deaths: ~490,000; vaccinated: ~12.2% of total population

  
  


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  Source: Johns Hopkins University / Washington Post

  
  


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  About a third of U.S. military personnel are declining to be vaccinated. About 960,000 members of the military and its contractors have been vaccinated. (New York Times)

  
  

2/ Biden clarified that his goal is to open the majority of K-8 schools by the end of his first 100 days in office. When asked to explain what he meant by “open,” Biden said, “I think many of them five days a week. The goal will be five days a week” in person. Last week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration wants more than 50% of schools to have “some teaching” in person “at least one day a week” – not fully reopened – by the end of April. Kamala Harris, meanwhile, stressed that teachers should be given priority for Covid-19 vaccinations, but wouldn’t say if she believed that teacher vaccinations should be a prerequisite for reopening schools. Dr. Anthony Fauci, however, added that vaccinating all teachers against Covid-19 before reopening schools is a “non-workable” solution. (NPR / NBC News / Politico)

3/ The Biden administration will invest more than $1.6 billion to expand coronavirus testing and genetic sequencing. About $650 million will go toward testing in K-8 schools and homeless shelters, $815 million will increase manufacturing to address shortages in testing supplies, and $200 million will go to increasing genetic sequencing efforts to help track existing and new variants. The White House called the $200 million a “down payment” that would increase the number of virus samples that labs can sequence jumping from around 7,000 to around 25,000 each week. Testing coordinator Carole Johnson, mean...

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