President Joe Biden on Tuesday said the U.S. will have a large enough supply of coronavirus vaccines to inoculate every adult in the nation by the end of May. Biden declined to estimate when things could go back to "normal," and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned that the United States is far from herd immunity, which is when enough people in a given community have antibodies against a specific disease. Yet on Tuesday, the governors of Texas and Mississippi both announced they are lifting mask mandates and allowing businesses to reopen at full capacity in their states.
The U.S. is recording at least 65,400 new Covid-19 cases and at least 1,900 virus-related deaths each day, based on a seven-day average calculated by CNBC using Johns Hopkins University data.
Here are some of the biggest developments Wednesday:
The following data was compiled by Johns Hopkins University:
- Global cases: More than 115.03 million
- Global deaths: At least 2.55 million
- U.S. cases: More than 28.77 million
- U.S. deaths: At least 518,900