Half of all Americans have now been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the White House’s Covid-19 data director.
Cyrus Shahpar revealed on Friday morning that 50 per cent of US residents have now completed their vaccine regimen.
Friday just in: +821K doses reported administered, including 565K newly vaccinated. 7-day average of newly vaccinated is up 11% from last week and 44% over past 2 weeks. 50% of Americans (all ages) are now fully vaccinated. Keep going! 🇺🇸
— Cyrus Shahpar (@cyrusshahpar46) August 6, 2021
After a blistering start, the US vaccination rollout slowed during late spring and early summer. The seven-day average of new doses reported daily dropped to a six-month low of about 432,500 by early July, having peaked at more than 3.4m a day in mid-April, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That slowdown has allowed places like the UK, EU and Canada to overtake the US, in terms of fully vaccinated population, despite slower or rockier starts to their vaccine rollouts.
Many leaders at federal, state and local levels of US government, as well as public health officials, have said that vaccination rates have picked up more recently, potentially in response to better outreach, education or concern about the adverse effects of the rapidly spreading Delta variant of Covid-19 on unvaccinated individuals.
An average of about 590,000 doses were being administered a day in the week to August 2, according to the CDC, while Shahpar said in his Twitter message on Friday that 821,000 doses were administered over the past day, including 565,000 newly vaccinated individuals.
The US earlier this week reached the milestone of 70 per cent of American adults having received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. President Joe Biden had hoped to hit that target by July 4.
Twenty states have fully vaccinated at least 50 per cent of their populations, according to CDC figures that were most recently updated on Thursday. Vermont, with 67.7 per cent fully vaccinated, has the highest level of coverage among all states, while Alabama ranks last with 34.6 per cent.
CDC figures, due to be updated later today, show more than 165.6m Americans have been fully vaccinated, or 49.9 per cent of the population.
