A speed bump in America's road to recovery

• The Biden administration on Wednesday announced its support for suspending patents on Covid-19 vaccines, to speed up vaccine development all over the world. It’s a move that puts the US in direct opposition to Big Pharma and some within the European Union. [NYT / Thomas Kaplan, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, and Rebecca Robbins]
• US Trade Representative Katherine Tai will now begin negotiating on behalf of countries hoping to rapidly develop their own vaccines with ready-made instructions. [Financial Times / Aime Williams, Kiran Stacey, Hannah Kuchler, and Donato Paolo Mancini]
• “This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures. The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines,” Tai said in a statement on Twitter Wednesday. [Washington Post / Dan Diamond, Tyler Pager, and Jeff Stein]
• The European Union, especially Germany, has positioned itself against patent restrictions, warning the American plan could create “severe complications” for future vaccine production, decreasing the drive for companies to innovate by eating into their bottom lines. [Bloomberg / Arne Delfs and Eric Martin]
• And lifting patent restrictions isn’t enough. Experts estimate any new vaccines wouldn't be available until 2022, mostly because of a lack of the raw materials needed to make them. For now, the move is mostly symbolic. [Stat News / Damian Garde, Helen Branswell, and Matthew Herper]
• Stephen Ubl, CEO of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said, "It's an empty promise. What's likely to happen if we give the recipe for these vaccines to other countries? They're not going to have the manufacturing capacity to actually manufacture the technology or the vaccines, but they are going to compete with our companies who can for scarce inputs,” Ubl said. [Fox Business / Megan Gallen]

[CNN / Dianne Gallagher and Veronica Stracqualursi]

• Covid-19 cases in India continue to break records, with over 414,000 cases reported yesterday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi still refuses to lock down the country, despite calls from health experts to do so. [AP / Neha Mehrotra and Ashok Sharma]
• Analysis by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation found that the true total of global Covid-19 deaths could be double the recorded number. [Axios / Dave Lawler]
• The WNBA kicks off its 25th season next week. When the league was founded in 1997, there were questions as to whether women's sports could be marketable. Now they look to be on the precipice of exploding in popularity. [Reuters / Amy Tennery]
• The Olympics are just 11 weeks away, but Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide’s state of emergency declaration in Tokyo has imperiled a visit from IOC President Thomas Bach and frustrated a largely unvaccinated population. [AP / Mari Yamaguchi]