Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Atlanta on Friday to tour a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination site at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a pastor until his assassination in 1968.
Watch the vice president’s remarks in the player above.
Only a third of Black Georgians have received at least one dose, compared to 38 percent of white Georgians and 72 percent of Asian residents, state data show.
Only Hispanic residents are faring worse, with about 31 percent having received one dose.
Harris’ trip comes as President Joe Biden is set to announce 300 million COVID-19 shots have been administered in the 150 days since he took office on Jan. 20.
But as Biden marks a new milestone in the fight against COVID-19 on Friday, another goal may fall short – his self-imposed target to have 70% of Americans at least partially vaccinated by July 4.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 305 million vaccine doses had been administered as of June 10.
Overall about 172.4 million people, or 51.9 percent of the total U.S. population, have received at least one dose of vaccine, according to the CDC.
About 141.6 million people, or 42.6 percent of the population, have been fully vaccinated.
The pace of new vaccinations in the U.S. has dropped significantly from a high of nearly 2 million per day about two months ago.
The administration is in the midst of a blitz to combat vaccine hesitancy, particularly in the South and Midwest.