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President Biden plans to announce Tuesday that he is moving up his target for all American adults to become eligible to receive a coronavirus vaccine by almost two weeks to April 19, according to a White House official.
Biden is also expected to announce that the United States has administered 150 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, the official confirmed, putting the president on track to meet or exceed his goal of administering 200 million doses in his first 100 days in office.
CNN first reported Biden's planned announcements on Tuesday. The president is scheduled to visit a vaccination site at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Va. Tuesday afternoon before returning to the White House to give remarks on the state of vaccinations.
Biden said during his first primetime address last month that he would urge states to make all adults eligible to receive a coronavirus vaccine by May 1. Biden previously said 90 percent of adults would be eligible by April 19.
The new target comes as the U.S. is steadily ramping up the amount of daily vaccinations. The Biden administration announced over the weekend that the U.S. hit 4 million doses in a 24-hour period for the first time.
Roughly a dozen states have already made anyone aged 16 and older eligible to sign up and receive a coronavirus vaccine, and more states are likely to do so in the coming days as more vaccine supplies steadily become more available.
While Biden expects all adults to be eligible to receive vaccines in 13 days, it will take longer for states and cities to actually administer them to the public. The Biden administration is also grappling with how to address vaccine hesitancy and convince those wary of inoculations to receive them so that the U.S. population can reach herd immunity.
The Biden administration is spending $10 billion to expand access to vaccines and increase uptake in underserved communities. Last week, Vice President Harris announced a new grassroots network tasked with boosting confidence in vaccines in their communities.
Biden has said he expects Americans to return to some degree of normal life by July 4.
Despite the positive vaccine news, the U.S. is still in the grip of the pandemic, with cases and hospitalizations rising again after weeks of decline. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky made an emotional appeal to the public last week to not let their guard down or ignore public health guidance as the U.S. grapples with a new surge of the virus and dangerous variants.
(THE HILL)
