Pandemic year 2: vaccines, variants and other developments | Local news on the COVID-19 coronavirus

One year after the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic on American soil, the United States still has a long way to go before the coronavirus is brought under control. But this second year of life with SARS-CoV-2 has started off with a bang, with a new White House administration promising major changes in the country’s pandemic response and millions of vaccine doses administered daily.
While the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were the big news of 2020 – and are now injected into the arms of more than a million Americans every day – 2021 brought new vaccine trial results from Novavax, Johnson & Johnson and Russian Sputnik V. Some results have been more promising than others, prompting experts to debate the balance between vaccine effectiveness and the challenges of availability and distribution. Meanwhile, researchers are scrambling to find out how each of these vaccines will work when confronted with the new variants of SARS-CoV-2 that are taking hold around the world.
The Biden administration has announced executive orders and new initiatives left and right, putting more scientists in charge of the pandemic response and pushing for vaccines to be provided to as many Americans as possible. The CDC continued to issue new guidelines as they developed more safety measures to prevent transmission of the virus, such as suggesting double masks and guidelines on how to protect schoolchildren during in-person lessons.
With so many changes every day, it can be difficult to keep up with all the news. That’s why Stacker has built a timeline of how the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded so far in 2021, using White House briefings and reporting. Here’s what President Biden and his administration have accomplished since taking office in January, and what the virus – and its new variants – have done since then.
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