A White House official said Wednesday that the United States will approach nearly half of all adults with the first shot of the coronavirus vaccine by the United States. end of this weekend.
This comes after White House senior adviser for Covid-19 response Andy Slavitt gave an ambitious timeline to CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Tuesday night.
“We’re on the track that over the weekend, half of the country’s adults will have had the first shot,” Slavitt said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 41.7% of the population over the age of 18 has received at least one dose of vaccine.
Slavitt warned that “more than 100 million adults have not yet been vaccinated.”
“They’re not there yet, and you don’t win the war until you take everyone with you,” he added.
Meanwhile, President Biden has moved the deadline for all U.S. adults to opt for the Covid vaccine. April 19th. Speaking to the White House yesterday, Biden said 150 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine had been administered during his first 75 days in office, in line with the goal of 200 million shots his 100th term of office.
Despite these improvements and the positive number of vaccines, the United States has a long way to go before the herd’s immunity is reached. Dr. Anthony Fauci has estimated that 70-85% of the population needs to be immunized. And the vaccination rate of all adults who want to vary greatly by state, according to a CNN federal data analysis.
And while health experts warn that the battle against Covid-19 has yet to be won, many states have already reopened and others have planned it as well.
California plans to fully reopen activities and businesses as of June 15, as infection rates fail, hospitalizations are low and vaccines are on the rise in the state. Vermont Gov. Phil Scott set a 90-day reopening plan through July 4th. Officials predict that approximately 70% of Vermont residents will have received at least one dose of vaccine at that time.
Meanwhile, the daily rate of new cases has been rising in the last four weeks as highly transmissible variants such as B.1.1.7. have spread, according to the CDC. Last week, five states accounted for about 44 percent of new cases of Covid-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
There have been about 453,000 new cases in the country in the last seven days, with New York, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey reporting nearly 198,000 of those cases.
The director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, Michael Osterholm, said that while states are vaccinating quickly, there are still enough people who have not been vaccinated to overcome the spread.
I would like to have another 3 or 4 months before this variant B.1.1.7 climb starts to take place. “, Osterholm added.
What will life be like after vaccination? Experts and officials are debating how to control vaccines when life in the U.S. regains a sense of normalcy.
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