A White House official said Wednesday that the U.S. will be closer to having nearly half of all adults with their first vaccination survey against the end of this weekend.
This comes after Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to the White House, gave Chris Cuomo of CNN an ambitious timeline for the Covid-19 response on Tuesday night.
“We are on track that half of the adults in the country would have had their first shot by the weekend,” Slavitt said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 41.7% of the population over the age of 18 received at least one dose of vaccine.
Slavitt warned that “100 adults have not yet been vaccinated.”
“They are not there yet, and you do not win the war until you bring everyone together,” he added.
President Biden, meanwhile, has moved the deadline for all U.S. adults to be eligible for Covid vaccine April 19. Speaking in the White House yesterday, Biden said 150 million doses of coronavirus vaccine were administered within his first 75 days in office, in line with a target of 200 million shots by his 100th day in office.
Despite these improvements and positive vaccine numbers, the US has a long way to go before reaching herd immunity. According to dr. Anthony Fauci should become immune to 70-85% of the population. And according to the CNN analysis of federal data, the rate of vaccination of all willing adults varies greatly between countries.
And while health experts warn that the fight against Covid-19 has not yet been won, many states have already reopened and others plan to do so soon.
California plans to fully reopen activities and businesses from June 15, as infection rates fail, hospitalizations are low and vaccinations rise in the state. Government of Vermont, Phil Scott, has submitted a 90-day reopening plan until July 4th. Officials expect about 70% of Vermont residents would have received at least one vaccine dose by that time.
Meanwhile, the daily rate of new cases has increased over the past four weeks as highly transferable variants such as B.1.1.7. according to the CDC. Johns Hopkins University data made up about 44% of the new Covid-19 cases last week.
There have been approximately 453,000 new cases in the state over the past seven days, with New York, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey reporting nearly 198,000 of these cases.
Director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, Michael Osterholm, said that although the states vaccinate rapidly, enough people have not yet been vaccinated to exceed the spread.
I wish we had another three or four months before this B.1.1.7.variant boom started, ‘Osterholm added.
What does life look like after vaccination? Experts and officials are discussing how to monitor vaccinations once life in the US is back to normal.
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