U.S. unlikely to meet Biden's July 4 goal for vaccinations
WASHINGTON — For months, President Joe Biden has laid out goal after goal for taming the coronavirus pandemic. Now, though, the U.S. is on pace to fall short of his aim to have 70% of Americans at least partially vaccinated by July 4.
The White House has launched a month-long blitz to combat vaccine hesitancy and a lack of urgency to get shots, particularly in the South and Midwest, but it is increasingly resigned to missing the president's vaccination target.
About 16 million unvaccinated adults need to receive at least one dose in the next four weeks for Biden to meet his goal. But the pace of new vaccinations in the U.S. has dropped to about 400,000 people per day — down from a high of nearly 2 million per day two months ago.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious disease expert, told reporters at a briefing on Tuesday that he still hopes the goal will be met “and if we don't, we're going to continue to keep pushing.”
So far 14 states have reached 70% coverage among adults, with about a dozen more on pace to reach the milestone by July 4. But the state-to-state variation is stark.
Fauci said the administration is “pleading” with states, particularly those with low vaccination rates, to step up their efforts in the coming months, though some of the states trailing behind are hardly sharing the urgency.
On a conference call Tuesday, White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients delivered an impassioned call for governors to join the administration in “pulling out all the stops” on vaccinations this month. “We need your leadership on the ground — which is where it matters the most — more than ever,” he said.
In Mississippi, which trails the nation with only about 34% of its population vaccinated, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has called Biden's goal “arbitrary, to say the least.”
University of Mississippi student Mary Crane hasn't felt much urgency to get the COVID-19 vaccine because she's already had the virus, and the family she's living with during the summer break has been vaccinated.
Fauci on Tuesday emphasized that increased vaccination was essential to stamping out potentially dangerous variants, including the so-called “Delta variant” first identified in India that is now the dominant strain in the United Kingdom and is growing in the U.S.
Vaccines have proven less effective against that variant when people are not fully immunized, and evidence points to it being more transmissible and more deadly.
In Ohio, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine created a lottery offering $1 million prizes for vaccinated adults and full-ride college scholarships for children. Ohio's lottery kicked off a wave of similar incentive lotteries nationally.
DeWine's May 12 announcement of the state's Vax-a-Million program had the desired effect, leading to a 43% boost in state vaccination numbers over the previous week. But the impact was short-lived, with vaccinations falling again the following week.
For some, the chance of winning $1 million isn't enough to overcome skepticism about the need for the vaccine. Joanna Lawrence of Bethel in southwestern Ohio says the COVID-19 survivability rate is so high, and the experiences of people she knows who took the vaccine are so bad, that she sees no need to risk a shot for herself. She made it through her own bout of the coronavirus in August.
