Shortly after taking office, President Joe Biden set a goal of administering over 1.5 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine a day, a goal that was achieved on Wednesday, according to the New York Times.
Biden also promised to administer 100 million doses of the vaccine within his first 100 days in office, which comes on April 30. As of Thursday, 82,572,848 vaccines have been administered, with 54,035,670 people receiving their first dose, and 27,795,980 people getting their second dose, according to the CDC vaccination data tracker.
Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine was authorized for emergency use on Saturday, but those doses do not appear yet in the C.D.C. data. The U.S. now has three vaccines given emergency authorization by the FDA that include the Moderna and PfizerBiontech vaccines.
The increased pace in vaccinations comes as the U.S. logs 28,759,980 coronavirus infections since the pandemic began a year ago, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. More than 518,000 people have died.
Even though a number of state and city governments have faced challenges over everything from logistics to vaccine hesitancy, and winter storms that slowed vaccine delivery, the Biden administration’s momentum has not wavered in its effort to vaccinate every willing American adult.
On Tuesday, Biden announced that by the end of May, it is estimated that the U.S. will have enough vaccine supply to vaccinate all American adults. Biden had originally said this would be accomplished by the end of July, according to The Hill.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has recently helped open seven mega-sites in California, New York, and Texas, that are staffed with active-duty troops, reports AJC.com.
Chicago will be opening a vaccination site at the United Center next week that will have a capacity of 6,000 shots a day. Many more such sites are planned.
Despite public health warnings to continue wearing masks, five states – Texas, Mississippi, Iowa, Montana, and North Dakota – have ended, or soon will end, statewide mask mandates. The five states have joined 11 other states – Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Tennessee – that never required face coverings statewide, according to ABC News.
