President Joe Biden has set a goal of giving 70 percent of U.S. adults at least one vaccine shot and fully vaccinating 160 million adults by July 4 so that life in the United States can start to look closer to normal.
The new target is said to be well within reach considering that almost 150 million Americans have received at least one shot and more than 105 million Americans are fully vaccinated.
“It’s a dramatic turnaround from where we were in January, when less than 2 percent of adults and less than 1 percent of seniors were fully vaccinated,” Biden said while announcing the next phase of his administration’s vaccination campaign.
“There are tens of thousands of Americans alive today because they had access to rapid vaccination program,” he said. “In the last 10 days, 1 out of every 10 adult Americans got a shot.”
Biden laid out plans to roll out the vaccine shots for children between 12 and 15 as soon as possible.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must issue an Emergency Use Authorization of the Pfizer vaccine for this age group, and it must be recommended for use by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the president said.
Biden assured that if that announcement comes, the administration is ready to move immediately to make about 20,000 pharmacy sites across the country ready to vaccinate those adolescents.
The President will challenge states to get as many adolescents vaccinated as possible with one shot by July 4, so that they can be fully vaccinated by the time school begins in the fall.
To make vaccinations more accessible, the government will Increase Walk-In Appointments, Pop-Up Clinics, and Mobile Units.
The President announced that he is directing tens of thousands of pharmacies in the federal pharmacy program to offer walk-in appointments; redirecting Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) resources to support more pop-up clinics, smaller community vaccination sites, and more mobile clinics; shipping new allocations of the vaccine to rural health clinics; and providing nearly $250 million in additional funding to help communities do outreach and engagement to help get people vaccinated.
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is providing nearly $860 million to help rural health clinics and hospitals to broaden their COVID-19 testing and slow the spread of the virus in their communities.
The HRSA will provide up to $100,000 to each of the 4,600 federally designated rural health clinics and up to $230,000 to each of the 1,730 small rural hospitals to increase COVID-19 testing, expand access to testing in rural communities, and broaden efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus.
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