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President Joe Biden has announced that 90 per cent of adults will be eligible to receive a coronavirus vaccine within the next three weeks.
“For the vast majority of adults, you will not have to wait until 1 May,” Mr Biden said while revealing eligibility would open to 90 per cent of adults by 19 April. “But as fast as we are going, we still have a long way to go in this vaccination effort.”
Mr Biden called this a “90/90” plan because not only would 90 per cent of adults be eligible for the coronavirus vaccine by 19 April, but 90 per cent of adults would also be living within 5 miles of a vaccination site.
This initiative, announced Monday afternoon, included the administration doubling the amount of pharmacies where vaccine doses will be available to the American public so 90 per cent of adults would be living within 5 miles of a location.
The number of eligible pharmacies will increase from the current 17,000 to nearly 40,000 across the country under the federal pharmacy vaccination program, Mr Biden said. Besides adding more pharmacy locations, the Biden administration would also be opening a dozen more mass vaccination sites.
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Already 31 states have announced all adults will be able to receive a Covid-19 vaccine, according to a White House fact sheet. New York was one of the latest states to announce extended eligibility, with Governor Andrew Cuomo revealing anyone 30 years and older could receive the vaccine starting tomorrow and anyone 16 years and old could receive it on 6 April.
Mr Biden called on all other states to also open up their eligibility within the month of April to give more adults access.
“President Biden called for all states, Tribes, and territories to make all US adults eligible for vaccination no later than 1 May and is working closely with state and local leaders to make this happen as quickly as possible,” the White House said in a statement.
Getting the country’s most vulnerable population groups vaccinated was also a priority for the Biden administration, so officials were launching a new effort to expand the senior and disability services to provide individuals with help scheduling and traveling to vaccination sites.
The United States was able to ramp up vaccinations due to manufacturing increasing between the three pharmaceutical companies with emergency use authorisation: Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and Pfizer.
This week the federal government would be sending 33 million vaccine doses to states, Mr Biden said, and the country administered a record 10 million vaccines over the last three days. Also, 75 per cent of the country’s most vulnerable population, those 65 years and older, have already received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.
But despite the positive strides the country was making in vaccinating Americans, recent Covid-19 data has concerned health officials. Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC, warned the public earlier on Monday about “impending doom” due to an increase in infections, hospitalisations, and deaths being witnessed.
Mr Biden referenced the concern when unveiling his administration’s new initiatives to vaccinate more people, and he implored states to put back in place their mask mandates if they were released.
“I call on every governor, mayor, and local leader to maintain and reinstate the mask mandate,” he said. “Please, this is not politics. Reinstate the mandate if you let it down.”
“We are still in a war with this deadly virus … This war is far from won,” the president added.
At the end of the announcement, Mr Biden was asked if governors should halt rolling back coronavirus measures at a time when cases, hospitalisations, and deaths were increasing. He responded, “Yes.”
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