Having crushed his campaign goal of having 100 million doses of coronavirus vaccines administered within his first 100 days in office–and in fact, doubling that quantity–President Joe Biden has announced a new goal for vaccines: 70% of American adults getting at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine by July 4th.
As reported by the Associated Press, the goal would be to have 180 million American adults with at least one vaccine and 160 million adults fully vaccinated, with either the single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine or one of the two two-dose vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. Currently, 56% of American adults have received at least one dose.
The set of goals laid out by Biden means administering the first dose to 965,000 people per day, roughly half the number that were getting initial doses last month, but still a challenge given the dropping vaccination rate.
Many conservative politicians and pundits, particularly people like Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul and Fox News talking head Tucker Carlson, have been questioning the need to get vaccines now, stating (or in Carlson’s case, “just asking questions”) about the safety of the vaccines.