Nearly half of the U.S. population ages 65 and older has received the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, White House senior adviser Andy Slavitt said.
The U.S. has doubled the pace of vaccinations since President Biden took office on Jan. 20, Mr. Slavitt said at a briefing Friday by the White House Covid-19 response team. Nearly one in five Americans have received a first dose of the vaccine, he said.
Mr. Slavitt said he would hold a call later Friday with thousands of business owners to seek help in vaccination efforts. The administration will ask U.S. companies to offer vaccination incentives to employees, such as paid time off or compensation for those getting vaccinated; to require masking and social distancing on their premises; and to amplify messaging by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about vaccines and mask-wearing.
The Biden administration has said it reached deals to secure enough doses to inoculate most of the American population by the end of July. On Thursday, Mr. Biden marked the 50 millionth coronavirus vaccine administered in the U.S. since he took office, which marked the halfway point of the president’s 100-day goal of 100 million doses.
Mr. Biden’s administration has worked with states to stand up federally supported mass vaccine sites, provided vaccines to community health centers in minority and underserved communities, and deployed nearly 3,500 personnel across the country to assist with vaccinations.
On Friday, Mr. Slavitt announced two new mass-vaccination sites: one in Chicago, which will be capable of vaccinating 6,000 people a day, and another with a capacity for vaccinating 3,000 people daily in Greensboro, N.C.
The vaccine rollout has faced occasional setbacks. Last week, winter storms created a backlog of roughly 6 million doses and delayed vaccine shipments. A new and more transmissible variant of the virus has also been spreading across the country.
“The story of this vaccination campaign is like the story of everything hard and new America does—some confusion, setbacks at the start, and then if we do the right things, we have the right plan to get things moving,” Mr. Biden said Thursday. “That’s what we’re seeing right now.”
The White House said starting next week, states will begin receiving 14.5 million weekly doses of vaccine—up nearly 70% from when Mr. Biden took office. The administration also said the federal government would distribute roughly 25 million face coverings to thousands of community health centers and food banks in an effort to encourage mask-wearing.
The percentage of people in the U.S. intending to get the vaccine is rising, according to a poll released Friday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The survey of 1,874 adults ages 18 and older found that 55% of Americans say they want to get vaccinated as soon as possible or have already received at least one dose, up 8 percentage points over the past month. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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