The White House announced that more than 70% of Americans over the age of 30 have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine as the administration redoubles its efforts to get younger people vaccinated, the Associated Press reports.
While the number of vaccinated people in the US continues to increase, the pace of inoculations ebbs, making it highly unlikely the nation will hit President Joe Biden’s goal of having 70% of all Americans vaccinated by July 4th.
“What we’ve seen, as we’ve dug into the data, is that there is a big gap between individuals 25 and over, and 18 to 25,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday. “That means that’s an area we need to continue to work on.”
The administration continues to push younger Americans to get vaccinated as evidence shows the Delta variant of the coronavirus infects younger people and the strain has longer-term impacts on the health of those infected.
In a study released last week, researchers found a somewhat obvious commonality among those being hospitalized with severe COVID: that they’re overwhelmingly unvaccinated.