THE BIG STORY

There’s good news and bad news about the coronavirus variants and vaccines

I'm a good-news-first person, so let's start there: the good news is that lab results confirmed that the approved vaccines, Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, seem to be effective against two extra-contagious variants of the coronavirus.

But the worrying news is that experts see trouble ahead, because the virus is mutating faster than scientists expected, and this could threaten to overcome the vaccines that already exist.

Moderna said its two-shot vaccine was still effective against two new variants — B.1.1.7, which was first seen in the United Kingdom and B.1.351, which was first found in South Africa. Their study showed vaccinated people still produced a “neutralizing” amount of antibodies against the variants. Last week, Pfizer and BioNTech announced similar results.

That’s positive, but here is where the trouble comes in: Moderna reported a “six-fold reduction” in its vaccine’s antibody levels against the B.1.351 variant. Pfizer and BioNtech have seen similar reductions.

A comforting detail: According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the surprising effectiveness of the vaccines gives some “cushion” for the shots to still create enough antibodies to protect people.

Speaking of vaccines:

President Joe Biden plans to purchase 200 million more vaccine doses to be delivered over the summer. The president has faced mounting pressure to up his pledge of administering 100 million COVID-19 shots during his first 100 days in office.

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

The Justice Department has rescinded the “zero tolerance” border policy that led to families being separated

The Trump administration's 2018 zero tolerance policy called for prosecuting everyone who was caught crossing the border illegally. From May 5 to June 20 that year, it resulted in the separation of more than 3,000 children from their parents, who were referred to the Justice Department for prosecution.

Now, acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson has rescinded the policy, and wrote in a memo to federal prosecutors that it was inconsistent with the Justice Department's principles.

The move is largely symbolic — most immigrant families have not been prosecuted under the policy after former president Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep the families together after they had been apprehended.

SNAPSHOTS

Here’s what President Biden’s travel ban means for you. Biden extended COVID-19 travel restrictions for most of Europe, the UK, Ireland, and Brazil, while also ending Trump's Muslim travel ban.

A federal judge in Texas has blocked Biden’s 100-day pause on deportations. The judge's order represents an initial setback for the Biden administration, which has vowed to reform agencies like ICE.

Biden is aiming to end the federal use of private prisons. The president is directing the Justice Department to not renew contracts with private prisons. This is significant — over the last decade, ending private prison funding has become a major cause for Democrats and criminal justice activists.

A wealthy couple reportedly pretended to be members of a remote Indigenous community to get a COVID-19 vaccine. A casino company CEO and his wife are facing charges after allegedly chartering a plane to a remote Indigenous community in Canada, breaking isolation requirements, and lying to officials at a mobile vaccine clinic, saying that they were workers at a local motel, in order to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

An anti-vax pharmacist pleaded guilty to trying to destroy hundreds of COVID vaccines. Some 57 people received doses of the vaccines the pharmacist tampered with, and officials are trying to determine if those vials were harmful or ineffective.

EVERY DAY IS EXACTLY THE SAME

All we’re waiting for now is the pandemic to end, but that just makes it feel further away

It’s not just you — it’s getting harder to do this. 10 or so months into COVID-19 restrictions, it’s getting harder to think about anything other than the end of the pandemic.

For a few months, there was distraction — the political pace was nonstop, for example. There was also a flurry of newness: new vaccines, a new administration, a new year, new vaccine rollout plans. But on most of those fronts, things have calmed. Now, all there is left to do is wait and fight impatience.

Our reporter David Mack wrote about the impatience and the reality that this isn’t going to end soon, and how so many people are hitting the hardest point in their pandemic coping now.

As one person put it in the story, “The month of March hasn’t ended yet, and it’s about to start again.”

BuzzFeed News; Getty Images

JOIN THE CLUB

The Liar’s Dictionary is the BuzzFeed Book Club pick for February. Here is the first chapter.

There’s nowhere to go, so maybe reading can save us. We just published the first chapter of Eley Williams’s utterly delightful novel The Liar’s Dictionary, which our book editors describe as “a sharp-witted, big-hearted, hilarious story of meaning and purpose that lovers of language will relish.”

You should absolutely read the first chapter right here. Then right after you do, join us for the BuzzFeed Book Club.

Even on the hard days, think about ways you could show up for yourself,

Elamin