About half of American adults have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released on Saturday.
Across the country, more than 128 million people aged 18 and older received at least one shot, with more than 82 million being fully vaccinated with one of the three vaccines approved for emergency use in the US, the CDC said.
Overall, 49.7 percent of U.S. adults received at least one vaccine dose, according to the data, and nearly a third were fully vaccinated.
The milestone comes a day after the CDC announced that 30 percent of American adults have been fully vaccinated, a percentage that is likely to rise rapidly in the next few weeks after President Biden’s decision to make vaccination access available to all Americans 18 and older by Monday.
Three vaccines received emergency approval in the US – vaccinations by Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson – although federal officials this week recommended a break in the administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine due to six reported cases of blood clots from more than 6.8 million people who received the shot.
Johnson & Johnson scientists said Friday there is currently ‘insufficient’ evidence of a ‘causal link’ between the single-dose vaccine and the cerebral blood clot, known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. The US-recommended break has raised concerns about the progress of vaccine distribution as well as vaccination.
CDC Director Rochelle WalenskyRochelle WalenskyOvernight Health: NIH reverses Trump’s ban on fetal tissue research | Biden invests .7B to fight virus variants CDC panel meets again on Friday at J&J CDC advisory panel will meet again in a week on J&J vaccine. Biden administration invests .7B in shell, fights COVID-19 variants MORE said on Friday that an independent advisory panel will meet again next week to resume discussions on the continuation of the pause of the Johnson & Johnson shot.
The break in distribution has already had an impact on the public perception of the vaccine, with a poll by Economist-YouGov Released Thursday shows that only 37 percent indicated they believe the vaccination is safe, compared to 52 percent who said the same thing before the announcement.
Despite concerns about the safety of the shot, Anthony Fauci
Anthony FauciOvernight Health: NIH reverses Trump’s ban on fetal tissue research | Biden invests .7B to fight virus variants CDC panel meets again on J&J Fox News’s Bret Baier vaccination selfie The Hill’s 12:30 Report: Nearly half of American adults partially or completely vaccinated MORE, the country’s leading expert in infectious diseases, said on Wednesday that he believes the strike can actually reduce vaccine hesitates by showing how seriously federal agencies take vaccine safety.
The updated vaccination figures released on Saturday come after officials forced them to be vaccinated for larger parts of the country. Fauci said in an interview with Business Insider last week that between 70 and 85 percent of the U.S. population needs to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.
The US has had a more efficient distribution of vaccines than some other countries, especially in Europe, where the The World Health Organization said earlier this month that the vaccination of vaccines was “Unacceptably slow.”
Even amid the increase in vaccinations, cases and deaths continue to continue all over the world, with the world Survives 3 million coronavirus-related deaths Saturday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
According to the tracker, the U.S. reported the most COVID-19 deaths in any country with more than 566,000, followed by Brazil with more than 368,000 deaths and Mexico with more than 211,000.