According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were released Saturday.
Across the country, more than 128 million people ages 18 and older have received at least one injection, of which more than 82 million have been fully vaccinated with one of three vaccines approved for emergency use in the US, the CDC said.
Overall, 49.7 percent of American adults have received at least one dose of vaccine, according to the data, and nearly a third have been fully vaccinated.
The milestone comes one day after the CDC has announced that 30 percent of American adults were fully vaccinated, a percentage that is likely to increase rapidly in the coming weeks after President Biden’s decision to make all Americans 18 and older eligible for vaccines on Monday.
Three vaccines have been issued an emergency permit in the US. – inoculations by Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson – by federal officials this week recommended a break when given the Johnson & Johnson vaccine because of six reported cases of blood clots in more than 6.8 million people who received the injection.
Scientists at Johnson & Johnson said Friday that there is currently “insufficient” evidence of a “causal relationship” between the single-dose vaccine and the blood clot in the brain known as cerebral sinus vein thrombosis. The US-recommended pause has raised concerns about the progress of vaccine distribution and the hesitation of vaccines.
CDC director Rochelle WalenskyRochelle Walensky Overnight Health: NIH Reverses Trump’s Ban on Fetal Tissue Research | Biden invests .7B to fight virus variants | CDC panel meets again Friday at J&J CDC advisory panel meets again in a week on J&J vaccine Biden administration invests .7B in tracking, combating COVID-19 variants MORE said an independent advisory panel on Friday will meet again next week to resume discussions on whether or not to continue the break of Johnson & Johnson’s shot.
The distribution break has already had an impact on the public perception of the vaccine, with an Economist-YouGov poll released Thursday showing that only 37 percent said they believed the vaccination was safe, against 52 percent who said the same prior to the announcement.
Despite concerns about the safety of the shot, Anthony Fauci
Anthony FauciOvernight Health: NIH Reverses Trump’s Ban on Fetal Tissue Research | Biden invests .7B to fight virus variants | CDC panel meets again Friday at J&J Fox News’ Bret Baier Post Vaccination Selfie The Hill’s 12:30 Report: Nearly Half of U.S. Adults Are Partially or Fully Vaccinated, the best infectious disease expert in the country, said on Wednesday that he believed the stop could actually diminish hesitation about vaccines by showing how seriously federal agencies take vaccine safety.
The updated vaccination figures released Saturday come after officials pushed for larger areas of the country to be vaccinated. Fauci told Business Insider in an interview last week that between 70 and 85 percent of the US population would need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.
The US has had more effective vaccine distribution than some other countries, especially in Europe where the The World Health Organization said earlier this month that the vaccines have been rolled out “Unacceptably slow.”
Even despite the proliferation of vaccinations, cases and deaths persist around the world, with all over the world more than 3 million fatalities related to the coronavirus Saturday, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
According to the tracker, the US has by far the most reported COVID-19 deaths of all countries with more than 566,000, followed by Brazil with more than 368,000 deaths and Mexico with more than 211,000.