The Biden administration pledged nearly $200 million as a “down payment” for tracking virus variants.
The Pentagon said that roughly a third of U.S. troops are declining to be vaccinated when offered, slightly more than the population at large.
The European Union’s chief executive said the bloc had secured an additional 300 million doses of the Moderna vaccine.
Get the latest updates here, as well as maps and vaccines in development.

Biden promises vaccines ‘by the end of July’

During a town-hall style meeting on Tuesday night hosted by CNN, President Biden said that every American who wanted a Covid vaccination would be able to get one “by the end of July this year.”

Mr. Biden qualified the remark slightly, saying that doses would “be available” by then, but he added that it shouldn’t take months to get the shots into people’s arms. He also said that the nation would be “significantly better off” by the start of the next school year in the fall, and “in a very different circumstance” by Christmas.

As far as vaccine doses go, Mr. Biden’s timeline appears solid. His administration said last week that it had secured an additional 200 million doses, and that the country now had enough to cover the country’s 260 million adults — and then some — by the end of summer.

With Moderna and Pfizer continuing to ramp up production, and the likelihood that Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine could be approved for emergency use in the U.S. in early March, the next big challenge will be logistics.

There, too, are some signs for optimism.

The White House announced on Tuesday that the federal government would soon deliver a total of 13.5 million doses per week to the states, a jump of more than two million doses. It also said it double the number going out to pharmacies around the country, delivering two million rather than one million a week. The boosts in supply come after the Biden administration had been working with Pfizer to get the company more manufacturing supplies, including pumps and filtration units, through the Defense Production Act.

The U.S. has also increased the pace of vaccination, from just below 1 million per day when President Biden took office, to an average of about 1.7 million today. And now it looks as though President Biden’s early goal of 100 million shots in 100 days is too low of a bar, as the nation appears likely to get there with more than a month to spare. About 36.6 million doses have been given in the first four weeks of Mr. Biden’s presidency, bringing the total doses administered to about 56.3 million.

See the latest on the progress of the country’s vaccination campaign.
The virus divides Israel
Dan Balilty for The New York Times

As the virus has torn through Israeli society, it has caused a collision between mainstream Jews and the ultra-Orthodox minority that The Times is documenting.

The chasm was in stark relief after the funeral of a revered rabbi brought hundreds of men into the streets at the end of January, most with mouths uncovered.

The ultra-Orthodox, or Haredim, are an insular, highly religious group that eschew many trappings of modernity in favor of intensive religious study. Since the start of the pandemic, some parts of their society have adhered to the restrictions and protocols the secular state ordered to counter the virus — but others have resisted.

And the virus has devastated them.
Dan Balilty for The New York Times

Israel leads the world in vaccinating its citizens, and is viewed as a bellwether for what a post-pandemic world might look like.

But the number of infections remains high — and the Haredim have borne the brunt. Overall, they represent 12.6 percent of the population, but 28 percent of infections. Some only go to the hospital when it’s too late.

The emergence of new virus variants has made the past month particularly devastating. The more contagious B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in Britain, now accounts for up to 80 percent of the cases in Israel.
Dan Balilty for The New York Times

Amid the suffering, even internal critics feel defensive of the Haredim and reluctant to provide ammunition to secular critics. And they feel intimidated by the level of secular vitriol.

“I feel caught between two sides,” one woman said. “I feel fear from the pandemic and I want to keep my family safe from it. But I also feel fear from the secular side.”

“When they look at the Haredi people, they see all of us as one group,” she said. “All of us in black.”
Vaccine rollout

In the U.S., the White House said that only “a few million” Johnson & Johnson doses will be ready by early March, when the vaccine is likely to be authorized.
Gaza received its first vaccine doses after Israel approved a delivery of Russia’s Sputnik V that the Palestinian Authority had purchased.
Japan began its national vaccination program. The comparatively late start has raised questions about whether the country will be ready to host the Olympics, which are scheduled to begin in July.
South Africa began vaccinating residents, including President Cyril Ramaphos, hours after 80,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine arrived in the country on Wednesday.

What else we’re following

Scientists are urging the C.D.C. to set standards to limit the airborne transmission of the coronavirus in high-risk settings like meatpacking plants and prisons.
The commander of the U.S. base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, shut down most community activities there overnight on Tuesday to combat the spread of the virus.
The Cuban government said one of the four vaccines developed by Cuban scientists will enter a final phase of testing next month.
Vaccinating Oregon’s teachers might not be enough to reopen its schools.
Vaccine jabs have replaced glitter and samba at Carnival in Rio de Janeiro.
The New York Times