The US Opens COVID-19 Vaccination to People Over 16

The White House Senior Adviser for COVID-19 Response Andy Slavitt on Monday stated that the vaccination campaign will be extended to people over the age of 16. This announcement comes at a time when a quarter of the country's population is already fully vaccinated.

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The average daily number of vaccines administered went from 2.5 million in March to over 3 million doses in April. Currently, over 130 million people have received at least one dose and over 84 million are fully vaccinated.

Vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech are currently available in the U.S. Until last week, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccines were also being used.

On April 13, however, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended a pause in the administration of the J&J vaccine following the occurrence of six cases of cerebral thrombosis in people under 48 years of age.

Currently, the U.S. is the nation most affected by the pandemic with 31.6 million infections and over 567,000 related deaths. In the last seven days, this nation has recorded 67,000 new COVID-19 cases.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky stressed that the situation is "complicated," especially due to the increase in the number of cases and hospitalizations among young people. She also urged maintaining social distancing measures.

At the current rate of vaccination, the U.S. is expected to have vaccinated 70 percent of its 330 million population by the end of June, which would allow it to achieve "herd immunity."