| 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson's Covid-19 vaccine were contaminated in Baltimore; a top Black adviser to Boris Johnson resigns after a government report denies structural racism in the UK. Tonight's Sentences was written by Greg Svirnovskiy. | | | | | | | A setback in the US vaccine rollout | | | | | AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images/Getty Images | | - Up to 15 million Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine doses were contaminated after a Baltimore subcontractor mixed up the vaccine's ingredients with those used in AstraZeneca's vaccine, which the subcontractor also manufactures. The mistake will delay future shipments of the J&J vaccine as FDA officials begin an investigation. [NYT / Sharon LaFraniere and Noah Weiland]
- The subcontractor, Emergent BioSolutions, had already been cited by the FDA for quality control problems, poorly trained employees, and mold in one facility. [AP / Richard Lardner and Jason Dearen]
- While significant, the mishap is not expected to derail President Joe Biden's pledge to have enough vaccines to inoculate all American adults by the end of May, senior administration officials said. None of the J&J vaccines currently in distribution were made in the facility. [AP / Linda A. Johnson and Richard Lardner]
- In an interview with CBS This Morning on Thursday, Biden's chief Covid-19 adviser Anthony Fauci praised the system of checks and balances that caught the mistake: "The good news is that it did get picked up," Fauci said. "Nothing from that plant has gone into anyone that we've administered to." [CBS News]
- J&J's vaccine received an emergency use authorization from the FDA in February, and has shipped out around 6.7 million doses as of Thursday morning, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [NBC News / Erika Edwards]
- According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, uptake and demand for Covid-19 vaccines is on the rise in the US. While 47 percent of Americans had either received a vaccine dose or hoped to soon get one in January, Kaiser found that number to have increased to 61 percent as of March. [NYT]
| | | Boris Johnson's top Black adviser resigns after a controversial government report on race | | - On Wednesday, the British government published a deeply controversial report that concluded Britain no longer struggles with systemic racism. One day later, Samuel Kasumu, the most senior Black adviser in Prime Minister Boris Johnson's administration, resigned. [AP / Jill Lawless]
- Johnson's administration categorically denied Kasumu's resignation had anything to do with the government report on racism, saying he'd long planned to leave his post in May. Kasumu has not yet elaborated on the reason for his resignation. [Huffington Post / Ned Simons]
- Kasumu, Downing Street's special adviser for civil society and communities, almost resigned in February due to tensions over race policy within the Johnson administration and amid frustrations with a Conservative Party he called "steeped in division." Kasumu was reportedly persuaded to stay by the administration's vaccine minister, and had been working to encourage Black Britons to get vaccinated. [Guardian / Rajeev Syal]
- The report, commissioned amid 2020's global Black Lives Matter protests, said the country's work to promote inclusivity in education and the economy "should be regarded as a model for other white-majority countries." [BBC]
- It drew swift backlash from critics, who argued it attempts to put a "positive spin" on the legacy of slavery and promote an overly simplistic view of race. [NYT / Mark Landler and Stephen Castle]
- The effects of racism have been under great consideration in the UK recently, due to last year's racial justice protests, but also because of a March interview in which Prince Harry and Meghan Markle spoke of the rampant racism Meghan experienced from the press and within the walls of Buckingham Palace. [Vox / Constance Grady]
| | | | | | | A child was among 4 people killed in a shooting at a Southern California office building, the country's third mass shooting in two weeks. | | | [LA Times / Matthew Ormseth, Anh Do, Hannah Fry, and Ruben Vives] - The New York Mets and Francisco Lindor came to terms last night on a contract agreement that will pay him $341 million over the next 10 years. The Mets, which acquired Lindor from Cleveland earlier in the offseason, are making the prized shortstop the third highest-paid player in the MLB, behind only Mike Trout and Mookie Betts. [ESPN]
- The Biden administration is outpacing the Trump and Obama administrations in stock market performance, 50 trading days into Biden's first term. The S&P 500 is up 4.6 points from January 20. Trump saw a 4.4-point bump in his first 50 days; Obama saw a 6.1-point decrease. [Axios / Dan Primack]
- Seven Hong Kong pro-Democracy leaders, including entrepreneur and media mogul Jimmy Lai, were convicted of unlawful assembly for organizing and taking part in an August 2019 protest over Beijing's proposed extradition law. [NPR / Scott Neuman]
- France is struggling to deal with a new variant-driven Covid-19 wave, one that's been bolstered by President Emmanuel Macron's failure to put the country back into lockdown as cases rose and amid sluggish vaccine procurement. [AP / Angela Charlton]
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