The Biden Administration is turning its vaccination focus on the under 30 population.
“The reality is many younger Americans have felt like COVID-19 is not something that impacts them and they’ve been less eager to get the shot,” said White House COVID Response Coordinator Jeff Zients.
Watch the White House COVID task force briefing in the video player above.
“However, with the Delta variant now spreading across the country and infecting younger people worldwide, it’s more important than ever that they get vaccinated. We are working with state and local leaders to reach them. We think it will take a few extra weeks to get to 70 percent of all adults with at least one shot with the 18 to 26 year olds factored in.”
This comes as the White House COVID Task Force announced the country won’t meet the president’s July 4th deadline in getting 70 percent of the population vaccinated with at least one shot.
More than 70 percent of Americans age 30 or older have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the White House said.
The White House said meeting Biden’s vaccination goal is less important than the pace of the nation’s reopening, which is exceeding even its own internal projections as the overwhelming majority of the nation’s most vulnerable people are fully vaccinated and cases and deaths are at their lowest rates since the earliest days of the pandemic.
Still, the nationwide rate of new vaccinations has dropped off precipitously over the past month even as shots have become more available, with fewer than 300,000 Americans now getting their first dose per day on average.
Americans at highest risk for complications from COVID-19 are overwhelmingly vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but only 53 percent aged 25-39 have received one dose. Among those 18-24, it’s 47 percent.
