WTF Just Happened Today

Thursday, March 18, 2021

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1/ The U.S. is on track to surpass Biden’s goal of administering 100 million Covid-19 shots by Friday. Just over 99 million shots have been administered since Biden took office, and the country is averaging nearly 2.5 million injections per day. 65% of people age 65 or older had received at least one shot and 36% have been fully vaccinated. The Biden administration is reportedly looking toward the middle of May to relax travel restrictions with Mexico and Canada, and on inbound international travel from the U.K., Europe, and Brazil. (NBC News / Politico / CNBC / Bloomberg)

• ???? Dept. of “We’re gonna get through this.”

• Global: Total confirmed cases: ~121,595,000; deaths: ~2,687,000

• U.S.: Total confirmed cases: ~29,659,000; deaths: ~540,000; fully vaccinated: ~11.8%; partially vaccinated: ~22.7%

• Source: Johns Hopkins University / Washington Post

2/ Biden agreed to send about 2.5 million of doses of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine to Mexico. The announcement of the vaccine deal follows a recent call where Biden asked President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico whether more could be done to limit the flow of migrants coming to the border. Today, Mexico announced that it will limit travel across its northern and southern borders starting March 19, and deploy sanitary control measures at both borders to slow the spread of Covid-19. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that the discussions over vaccines and border security were “unrelated” but also “overlapping.” When asked if the vaccine offer to Mexico had “strings attached,” Psaki replied that there were “several diplomatic conversations — parallel conversations — many layers of conversations” at play. The U.S. will also send about 1.5 million doses to Canada. (Washington Post / NBC News / New York Times / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal)

3/ An inspector general’s report found no evidence to support a Pennsylvania postal worker’s claim that his supervisors had tampered with mail-in ballots during the presidential election. Richard Hopkins initially alleged that he overheard plans to backdate ballots received after Nov. 3 and pass them off as legitimate. Hopkins later released a sworn affidavit recanting those allegations. Lindsey Graham and other Republicans, however, repeatedly cited the initial allegation to press baseless claims of voter fraud in the election. (