US COVID-19 Vaccine Program Expanding Again

This article was originally published in ContagionLive.

As of April 19, every state in the US expanded its COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to include all adults over the age of 16 to meet the standard President Joe Biden put forth in early April.

The country is now administering 3.2 million doses a day on average, and half of adults have now received at least 1 dose. Additionally, 84.3 million people have now been fully vaccinated against the disease.

On Sunday, the nation’s top infectious disease expert Anthony S. Fauci, MD, said that he believed the pause on the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine will likely be lifted on Friday.

During interviews on talk shows, Fauci stated that he expected federal health officials to decide on the vaccine’s future by the end of the week and that he did not anticipate the vaccine being permanently banned.

In a statement on Monday, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that they will supply an additional 100 million dose to the European Union, bringing the total number of vaccines the 2 companies have supplied to 600 million doses.

The Union hopes that the additional doses will help to accelerate the inoculation program.

Data Table per Our World in Data (April 18, 2021, 12 AM EST)

In the US, Dr. Anthony Fauci also added to his remarks that he believes all children will most likely be eligible to receive a vaccination by the first quarter of 2022. He said he thinks all children of basically any age should be able to receive a shot against COVID-19, and expects high school kids to be eligible by the fall.

Data Table per CDC COVID-19 Tracker (April 18, 2021, 6 AM EST)

For more information on COVID-19 vaccination research, distribution, and assessment, check out some of these recent Contagion stories:

COVID-19 Thrombotic Risk: Vaccines, The Virus, and Its Patients

Pathogenesis of Clots Following COVID-19 Vaccine Suggests Choice of Treatments

BNT162b2: The First COVID-19 Vaccine