Joe Biden expected to announce 200m Covid vaccine shots administered – live

2.47pm BST14:47

DOJ to announce Minneapolis police probe following guilty verdict

Attorney general Merrick Garland will reportedly announce the justice department is launching an investigation of the Minneapolis police department, after former officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd.

The AP reports:

The Justice Department is already investigating whether the officers involved in Floyd’s death violated Floyd’s civil rights. The investigation announced Wednesday is known as a ‘pattern or practice’ and will be a more sweeping probe of the entire department and may result in major changes to policing there, the official said. The official had direct knowledge of the matter but was not authorized to speak publicly about the upcoming announcement, planned for Wednesday morning.

The investigation will examine practices used by police and whether the department engages in discriminatory practices and will examine the department’s handling of misconduct allegations, among other things, the person said. It’s unclear how far back that will go.

The Guardian’s trial live blog has the latest updates from Minneapolis after yesterday’s historic announcement of the verdict. Follow along with that blog here:

2.32pm BST14:32

Minneapolis hopes for new beginning after guilty verdict

Lois Beckett

As George Floyd’s girlfriend waited for a verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer charged with murdering Floyd, one of the journalists crowded around her asked what being present outside the Minneapolis courthouse meant to her.

Courteney Ross, 45, who had given emotional testimony about her and Floyd’s struggle with opioid addiction, was candid: the courthouse was “not a comfortable place for many of us”.

“So many of us have a lot of negative experiences with the government,” she said. “I have had many bad encounters here.”

But that was the point of her being at the courthouse, Ross said: “I think it’s time we show what this building is supposed to be about, and it’s supposed to be about justice.”

“It needs to come back with that guilty verdict,” Ross said, “so we can start to believe again.”

Ross, who was wearing a cloth face mask printed with an image of Floyd’s face, waited outside the courthouse on Tuesday shoulder to shoulder with Toshira Garraway, a Black woman whose fiance, Justin Teigen, was found dead in a recycling truck in 2009 after fleeing from the St Paul police.

A guilty verdict in Floyd’s case would only be the beginning, Garraway said: there were hundreds more victims of police violence in Minnesota. “We need to reopen these cases, and [get] justice for the rest of these families,” she said.

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at 2.40pm BST

2.17pm BST14:17

Joe Biden’s announcement of 200 million shots administered comes at a bit of an odd time, given that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine remains on “pause” due to six reports of blood clots among the more than 7 million people who have received the J&J treatment.

The vaccine advisory panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to meet on Friday to discuss the J&J vaccine.

However, the White House has expressed confidence that the US will still be able to hit Biden’s vaccine distribution goals, even without J&J.

“We remain confident in our ability to meet the needs that we feel will be out there in the public by the end of May, and we will have enough vaccine for every American by the end of July without J&J,” the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said yesterday. “That is based on the supply that we’ve ordered from Moderna and Pfizer.”

2.11pm BST14:11

The White House has confirmed Joe Biden will announce today that 200 million vaccine doses have been administered since he took office in January.

“In today’s remarks, the President will note that the United States will reach over 200 million shots this week,” a White House official said in a statement to the press pool.

The president’s remarks will be delivered in roughly four hours from the South Court Auditorium at the White House.

2.06pm BST14:06

Biden expected to announce 200 million vaccine shots administered

Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.

Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks on the coronavirus pandemic later today, and the president is expected to announce a major accomplishment: 200 million vaccine doses administered since he took office in January.

Biden had initially promised that 100 million doses would be delivered by his 100th day in office, which will occur next week, but he doubled that goal after the country hit 100 million doses weeks ahead of schedule.

Joe Biden holds up his face mask as he speaks about the coronavirus pandemic. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP

According to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker, more than 213 million total shots have been administered in the US, with about 40% of the American population already receiving at least one vaccine dose.

Despite the encouraging news on vaccines, Biden will also likely sound a note of caution about relaxing coronavirus-related restrictions too quickly.

The country is still reporting more than 50,000 new cases a day, and 776 deaths were recorded just yesterday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins.

So the message from Biden will likely be this: we’ve accomplished a lot in the past few months, but don’t take a victory lap just yet.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

source: theguardian.com