Twenty states have met the Biden administration goal of partially vaccinating 70% of American adults by July Fourth. As the Delta variant spreads, holiday celebrations are held across the country.
Officials from the White House acknowledged last month that they would not meet their goal. This goal was established in early April when the US was vaccinated at a faster rate than now.
Mid-April saw the US reach its highest vaccination rate when the average daily dose of vaccines was 3.3 million. Each day, an average of 1.8 million people were fully vaccinated.
However, this rate dropped to a seven-day average of 1,121.064 doses per day like Saturday. Each day, 685,472 people become fully vaccinated.
The administration was able to achieve its goal of fully vaccinating 160,000,000 adults by the holiday. Federal data shows that 157 million adults had been fully vaccinated as of Saturday.
On Sunday’s NBC’s Meet the Press, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), stated that “as a nation, and as a whole we are doing very well.”
Health experts are warning about the dangers of low vaccination rates in certain areas. The Delta variant coronavirus has been detected in all 50 states as well as Washington DC.
The Delta version is highly contagious and can cause even more severe illnesses. Officials have had to return their mask guidance, even though people are fully vaccinated.
Fauci stated that there are states in which the vaccination rate of individuals is less than 35%. Under those conditions, you might see spikes in some regions, in particular states, cities, or countries. Because we have a large proportion of the population who are vaccinated, I don’t believe you will see anything nationwide. It’s going be regional.”
Los Angeles County health officials suggested last week that everyone in the county wear masks when they are in public indoor spaces.
California released most of its Covid-19 regulations on June 15. The state’s Covid-19 positive rate increased from 0.7% to 1.5% on July 2, according to state health data. State health officials stated Friday that the Delta variant accounts for 36% of all California’s new Covid-19 cases. This number is expected to increase.
According to health experts and studies, the Moderna/BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines are highly effective in protecting patients from serious illness and hospitalizations due to Covid-19 and its potentially deadly variants.
Barbara Ferrer, the head of Los Angeles County’s Public Health Department said that the new mask guidance was an additional precaution against Covid-19 cases.
Ferrer stated that vaccines offer powerful protection for those who have been vaccinated. However, there are many settings in which the slight risk of a vaccinated person spreading enough virus to infect another person, combined with the fact that it creates less and less risk in settings where there are many people unvaccinated makes it a prudent tool. Ferrer agreed.
She said that masks are not required by the county.
She stated that she had made a strong recommendation to have everyone indoors in settings where they don’t know each other’s vaccination status.
California is one of the 19th states to have fully vaccinated over half of its population. The remaining 18 states are Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington state, Washington, DC.
The expert believes full FDA approval of vaccines could impact vaccine hesitancy
Megan Ranney is an emergency physician at Brown University and a Daily Reuters medical analyst. She stated Saturday that more people will be vaccinated if the US Food and Drug Administration approves vaccines.
“I believe that full approval will make all the difference. She said that it will overcome the hesitancy and lack of confidence in a section of our population.
Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech are preparing their applications to the FDA for full approval. Johnson & Johnson stated that it plans to file a Biologics Licence Application, but hadn’t done so as of Friday.
Moderna and Pfizer requested priority review. This asks FDA to act within six months instead of the standard review’s 10 months. The goal dates have not been set.
Ranney stated that she wished the FDA would speed up the approval process. Although the FDA approval process can take several months, they have already reviewed the preliminary data. It doesn’t take much longer.
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 31% of adults have not been vaccinated. This would make it more likely that they will receive a vaccine fully approved by FDA. Around 20% of those who haven’t been vaccinated claim it is because the vaccine is too old.
Fauci stated that it was “most unusual” for FDA to deny full approval of coronavirus vaccines used under emergency use authorization during a White House Covid-19 briefing.
Fauci stated that while it is not something Fauci would want, “it would be an unusual situation to not see this… get full FDA approval.” “I believe it will happen.”
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At the beginning of the holiday weekend, the Pandemic-era travel record was broken
As people move to the Fourth of July weekend, the number of passengers traveling by air surpassed a record set during the pandemic.
According to the Transportation Security Administration, it has screened 2196,411 passengers at all airports in the country. This is the highest number of people since the outbreak.
According to the TSA, this number is greater than that of the same day in 2019, before the pandemic. The TSA had screened 2,184 253 passengers.
AAA predicts that 47.7 million people will travel by air and road from July 1 through July 5. This is a 40% increase in Independence Day travel last year and the second-highest travel volume ever recorded.