| Welcome to The Daily 202 newsletter! Tell your friends to sign up here. Via the Associated Press: On this day in 1963, after a standoff between Gov. George C. Wallace and President John F. Kennedy's White House, 20 Black students entered previously all-White Alabama public schools. President Biden made it clear last night he's lost patience with Americans shunning a free and effective vaccine against a virus that has claimed more than 654,000 U.S. lives so far. He's also had it with GOP politicians abetting vaccine resistance, or at least doing little to overcome it. But in laying out a six-step campaign, centered on sweeping new federal vaccine requirements, Biden left out one number: Exactly how many unvaccinated Americans his plan would cover. That math would help assess the reach and effectiveness of the president's new initiative. But it may matter less on the political stage than his channeling the frustration of vaccinated Americans who blame their unvaccinated fellows for extending the pandemic, and the social and economic disruptions it has inflicted on the country.  President Biden made it clear in a speech from the White House that he is losing patience with Americans who refuse to get vaccinated. (Andrew Harnik/AP) | "What more is there to wait for? What more do you need to see?" he asked from the State Dining Room of the White House, addressing the unvaccinated directly. "We've been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us, so please do the right thing." Biden left no doubt — repeatedly — he's had it with Republican governors blocking mitigation measures and blamed them for the soaring cases, rising hospitalizations and swelling death toll from the delta variant of the coronavirus. "We have the tools to combat covid-19, and a distinct minority of Americans — supported by a distinct minority of elected officials — are keeping us from turning the corner," he said. "These pandemic politics, as I refer to it, are making people sick, causing unvaccinated people to die." And the president had an unmistakable message for unruly airline passengers, caught in countless viral videos refusing to wear a mask and sometimes getting into altercations with flight attendants. "The Transportation Safety Administration, the TSA, will double the fines on travelers that refuse to mask. If you break the rules, be prepared to pay. And, by the way, show some respect," he thundered. "The anger you see on television toward flight attendants and others doing their job is wrong, it's ugly." But what was a lot less clear at the end of his 26-minute speech was just how many Americans who have declined to get the vaccine despite being eligible would be driven to do so by his new plan. (If you were told there would be no math, you were lied to. There's always math.) A tally by The Washington Post puts the number of Americans who have had at least one shot at 208.3 million, the number of fully vaccinated at 177.4 million, out of an eligible population of about 280 million. How large is the population of Americans who, for a range of reasons, haven't gotten vaccinated despite being eligible? Biden put it at 80 million. How large is the population of Americans — of one-shot, two-shot, no-shot vaccine status — that falls into the categories of people affected by his six steps? Biden put it at 100 million. Who's covered? My colleagues Annie Linskey, Yasmeen Abutaleb, Seung Min Kim, and Lisa Rein reported the new policies were "designed to affect tens of millions of Americans, ordering all businesses with more than 100 employees to require their workers to be immunized or face weekly testing." Biden said that totaled 80 million employees. Also covered, they reported, would be health-care facilities that take Medicare or Medicaid, as well as all federal employees and federal contractors. But there was immediate confusion over whether U.S. postal workers — some 644,000 strong — were included in the new campaign. My colleague Jacob Bogage initially reported they would not be, citing an anonymous White House official. Jacob later reported they would not be covered in Biden's executive order covering federal employees, but would be covered under Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules. And it wasn't immediately clear how many eligible-but-unvaccinated Americans fell outside the covered categories — those who don't work, for example, or those who work in businesses with fewer than 100 employees. Or how many of the 100 million technically covered by Biden's mandates have already been vaccinated. The political impact of Biden's announcement isn't totally clear. Republican governors threatened to fight the new mandates in court. Some GOP officeholders denounced them as tyrannical overreach inviting a "revolt," an eerie echo of the Jan. 6 insurrection to overturn the election. But public opinion polls give Biden a slight edge. Majorities of Americans favor requiring people to be vaccinated in order to go to work, eat in restaurants, attend large public events, stay at a hotel or travel by airplane, according to recent Gallup polling. Recent polling by The Washington Post/ABC News found a touch more than half of Americans support businesses requiring employees who come into work to be vaccinated, and slightly less than half among workers who are not self-employed. But the poll number most on the White House's mind yesterday may have been 48 percent. That's the percentage of Americans who told Gallup early last month that Biden had a "clear plan" to battle the virus. | 
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