Biden admin to advise COVID vaccine booster shots for most Americans at 8 months
17 August 2021
The Biden administration is coalescing around a plan to give COVID-19 booster shots to most Americans, the New York Times first reported Monday night.
What to expect: The booster shots would likely be given in the order the initial round of vaccines were administered, or around eight months after someone received the first two mRNA shots or the single Johnson & Johnson jab, a Biden administration official told Axios This could potentially begin in late September.
- The plan is still subject to approval by the Food and Drug Administration and a CDC advisory committee.
Driving the news: Officials are concerned by the nationwide surge in new coronavirus cases, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant.
- They're expected to make the announcement as soon as this week, per the NYT, and also the Washington Post and AP.
Go deeper:
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.