After the Center for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance to recommend that Americans again wear face coverings, even if they are vaccinated, the Biden administration on Monday finally achieved the feat of having 70 percent of the country vaccinated, a goal they aimed to reach by the Fourth of July.
Vaccination numbers are starting to increase amid outbreaks sparked by the new highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus but the U.S. still has yet to reach the administration’s other goal of having at least 165 million American adults fully vaccinated by July 4.
The average number of newly vaccinated people over the course of the past week is the highest mark since July 4, according to White House COVID-19 data director Cyrus Shahpar.
About 660,000 Americans are receiving a COVID shot each day, a jump from the July 20 rate of about 500,000, according to Our World in Data. However, the vaccination rate is still a far cry from spring figures. In April, at the country's highest rate, over 3 million doses per day were administered.
A minimum of 70 percent of people would need to have immunity from the virus, either natural or through a vaccine, to achieve herd immunity, according to the Johns Hopkins school of public health.
This comes amid increased efforts from the Biden administration to get more people vaccinated against the virus, going as far as to say that social media companies are killing people by allowing vaccine "misinformation" on their platforms.
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The CDC last week recommended that everyone over 2-years-old wear face coverings indoors in areas of high transmission, regardless of vaccination status, and director Rochelle Walensky told Fox News that the Biden administration was "looking into" the possibility of a nationwide vaccine mandate, due to the recent spike in COVID cases. She later walked back her comments.
In May, the CDC said that vaccinated individuals did not need to wear a mask in most settings.
The Food and Drug Administration has still yet to approve the vaccine, leading many Americans to hold off on receiving their jabs.
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