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President Joe Biden today updated his goal of 100 million vaccines administered during his first 100 days in office to 200 million vaccines.
“We met our first goal on day 58,” said Biden. “I know it’s ambitious, twice our original goal, but no other country in the world has even come close.”
Today is Biden’s 65th day in office; his 100th will be on Apr 30.
The pace of vaccines is picking up significantly and now is averaging 2.5 million shots per day, with dozens of states announcing plans to open up vaccine eligibility to all adults in the coming weeks. Alaska, Mississippi, West Virginia, and Georgia will allow all adults or residents older than age 16 to get vaccines beginning today.
By next week, according to CNN, Oklahoma, Texas, Ohio, North Dakota, Louisiana, and Indiana will join in opening up vaccination to all adults.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID Data Tracker shows 169,223,125 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been delivered in the US, and 133,305,295 have been administered, with 47,419,833 Americans fully vaccinated.
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Half of K-8 schools open; more money to at-risk communities
Biden said his administration was halfway to meeting his other goal for the first 100 days of his presidency: opening all K-8 schools for in-person instruction. Biden said about 50% of K-8 schools nationwide were open 5 days per week for students, and he was confident the other half would get there in the coming weeks.
The president also announced $10 billion of congressionally appropriated money to expand access to COVID-19 vaccines in the hardest-hit American communities.
In a separate funding announcement today, the CDC announced it would provide $332 million to community health workers for COVID-19 prevention and control in at-risk communities.
“These resources will strengthen the incredible work of our nation’s community health workers in areas disproportionately affected by COVID-19,” said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, in a statement. “Community health workers are trusted messengers within communities, and instrumental in connecting high-risk and vulnerable individuals to care and needed services, and addressing local public health challenges.”
AstraZeneca releases primary analysis, confirms findings
AstraZeneca said primary analysis of phase 3 data from the US trial of their vaccine shows it is 100% effective in preventing death and hospitalization, 85% effective against symptomatic COVID-19 in participants aged 65 years and over, and 76% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19.
The analysis was prompted earlier this week when the trial’s data and safety monitoring board told the National Institutes of Health it was concerned that AstraZeneca was using outdated data to show efficacy of its two-dose vaccine candidate, already widely used in Europe. Those earlier results showed the vaccine was 79% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19.
“These results have been presented to the independent Data Safety Monitoring Board. The primary analysis is pre-specified in the protocol and will be the basis for a regulatory submission for Emergency Use Authorization to the US Food and Drug Administration in the coming weeks,” AstraZeneca said in a press release.
Country reaches 30 million cases
Yesterday, the United States reported 86,903 new COVID-19 cases and 1,454 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker.
In total, the country has confirmed 30,057,034 cases, with 545,895 deaths.
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