News: Slow-going for Operation Warp Speed

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Slow-going for Operation Warp Speed

The US coronavirus vaccine rollout is falling short of Trump administration targets; the British Parliament signs off on a Brexit deal.

Sentences will be off on Thursday and Friday this week for the holidays. We'll be back in the new year.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Cameron Peters.

TOP NEWS

The US vaccination effort is starting slow

Brendan Smialowski/AFP

2020 is almost over — and with only about a day left, it's becoming clear that the initial vaccine rollout in the US is badly behind pace. About 2.1 million people have received the vaccine to date, far fewer than the Trump administration's goal of 20 million vaccinations before January 1. [CNN / Kristen Holmes and Arlette Saenz]
Distribution is also lagging, more than two weeks after the Food and Drug Administration authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine: Around 11 million total vaccine doses have been distributed around the US so far. [Stat / Nicholas Florko, Olivia Goldhill, and Helen Branswell]
Among other roadblocks, storing the vaccine — which must be kept cold — has posed a challenge, as has determining who gets access to the vaccine first. [Vox / Umair Irfan]
The pace of vaccinations could increase in the new year, though. The most recent Covid-19 relief bill from Congress includes $8.75 billion in funding for vaccine distribution. [CBS News / Meg Oliver]
President-elect Joe Biden has also promised to speed up the vaccine rollout: On Tuesday, he reaffirmed his goal of administering 100 million doses of the vaccine in his first 100 days in office. [AP / Alexandra Jaffe]
Trump, meanwhile, has been almost entirely absent from the vaccine effort, tweets notwithstanding. "The Federal Government has distributed the vaccines to the states. Now it is up to the states to administer," he tweeted Wednesday. "Get moving!" [Twitter / Donald J. Trump]
A widespread vaccination campaign can't come soon enough: More than 3,600 people died Tuesday from Covid-19, and the country reported more than 201,000 new cases. [New York Times]
In California, ICUs remain full statewide, with nearly 20,000 people hospitalized with the coronavirus. [SF Chronicle / Aidin Vaziri]
And Colorado on Tuesday reported the first US case of a new Covid-19 variant first discovered in the United Kingdom, which is believed to be as much as 70 percent more transmissible. [The Gazette / Erin Prater]

A final Brexit deal wins approval in Parliament

On Wednesday, the United Kingdom House of Commons signed off on a last-minute Brexit trade deal just one day before the UK exits the European Union single market. [CNBC / Matt Clinch]
The deal, which heads off a worst-case-scenario no-deal Brexit, was struck only last week. Key provisions include the end of free movement between the UK and EU and no tariffs on goods. [CNN / Zamira Rahim]
The UK also agreed to uphold some EU regulatory standards to ensure a "level playing field" and settled on an extended transition period for European fishing rights in British waters. Both issues were major sticking points in negotiations. [Slate / Joshua Keating]
Now, after an 11-month transition period, the UK's formal economic separation from the bloc will take place at 11 pm GMT on December 31. The political component of Brexit already happened earlier this year. [NYT / Stephen Castle]
The agreement hasn't been officially ratified by the European Parliament, but all 27 EU member states have signaled their approval, according to the BBC. The British House of Lords is expected to approve the deal later Wednesday. [BBC]

MISCELLANEOUS

The United Kingdom on Wednesday authorized Oxford and AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine for use.

[CNN / Laura Smith-Spark, Nada Bashir, and Mick Krever]

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley announced Wednesday that he would object to the certification of the 2020 election results by Congress next week, though there is no evidence of meaningful voter fraud. [Politico / Kyle Cheney]
Representative-elect Luke Letlow, who would have been sworn in on Sunday, died of Covid-19 Tuesday. He was 41. [AP / Melinda Deslatte]
On Tuesday, Argentina became the largest country in Latin America to legalize abortion. [Vox / Jerusalem Demsas]
From NPR: 52 good things that came out of 2020. [NPR / Linda Holmes]

VERBATIM

"Being a doctor does not make me a vaccine expert, but I know whom to trust: immunologists like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, who have spent their whole lives studying vaccine development. When the vaccine is offered to you, I urge you to take it."

[Dr. Kerry Kennedy Meltzer on her uncle Bobby Kennedy's spreading of vaccine misinformation / NYT]