Three big stories today:

The first is that President Biden announced today that Merck, the pharmaceutical company, will pitch in to help make the Johnson & Johnson single-shot coronavirus vaccine. Along with high production rates from the other manufacturers, this should enable the government to produce vaccines for all U.S. adults—300 million of us-- by the end of May, two months ahead of the previously projected schedule. The administration has facilitated this rate of production by using the Defense Production Act, a 1950 law that enables the government to manage production of materials deemed necessary for national defense. That law is used quite frequently, but while the previous president used it repeatedly during his administration, he was curiously reluctant to use it to address the coronavirus pandemic.

The vaccines will come none too soon for people in Texas, where Governor Greg Abbott today announced he will end the statewide mask mandate and permit all businesses to reopen without coronavirus restrictions. He says that “people and businesses don’t need the state telling them how to operate” any longer.

In the last week, Texas reported more than 200 deaths a day from Covid-19 and only 6.5% of Texans have been fully vaccinated. Although case rates have been declining across the country, the declines stopped this week, and cases in Texas actually increased. Currently, more than 6,000 people in Texas are hospitalized with Covid-19.

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