VIRUS TODAY: White House says U.S. vaccinations picking up

Here's what's happening Wednesday with the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.:

THREE THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

— The White House said the U.S. is vaccinating some 1.7 million people per day, up from under 1 million a month ago. New figures from the White House show the steady increase in the pace of vaccinations over President Joe Biden’s first month in office. The data comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Much of the uptick comes from people receiving their second dose of the approved vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer. The pace of first dose vaccinations has been largely steady over the past several weeks, hovering around an average of 900,000 shots per day. Biden is on track to blow past his goal of 100 million injections in his first 100 days in office — though the pace must pick up even further to meet his plans to vaccinate nearly all adults by the end of the summer.

— President Joe Biden has promised that most elementary schools will open five days a week by the end of his first 100 days in office. That’s Biden’s clearest statement yet on school reopenings, an issue where his administration came under fire when aides said schools would be considered open if they held in-person learning just one day a week. Biden had pledged in December to reopen “the majority of our schools” in his first 100 days but has since faced increasing questions about how he would define and achieve that goal, with school districts operating under a patchwork of different virtual and in-person learning arrangements nationwide.

— Arizona has passed two grim milestones, with more than 800,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 15,000 deaths from the disease. The state's Department of Health Services on Wednesday reported 1,315 additional cases and 82 new deaths, bringing its totals to 801,055 cases...