Coronavirus live updates: U.K. variant could ‘sweep the world,’ warns top British scientist

Leaders in the District, Maryland and Virginia made a joint request to the federal government this week, asking that it take responsibility for vaccinating tens of thousands of essential federal workers who live in the Washington region.

“Our request, we acknowledge, is a little bit unconventional and unique. But we would like for it to be entertained and approved,” D.C. Health Director LaQuandra Nesbitt said at a D.C. Council meeting Wednesday where she discussed the request.

Under the proposal to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Washington region would no longer dip into its overtaxed vaccine supplies to inoculate some 30,000 workers, including those at the U.S. Postal Service, certain essential workers in the federal court system and others employed by the Metro transit system.