US reaches 100-million vaccination mark six weeks early

Washington, Mar 19 (efe-epa).- The United States Friday reached 100 million Covid-19 vaccine milestone weeks ahead of President Joe Biden’s target date of his 100th day in office even as the country recorded 1,650 more deaths and 62,787 new coronavirus infections.

White House White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeffrey Friday said the country had reached the 100 million shots goal in just 58 days, weeks ahead of schedule.

“Achieving this goal is a direct result of deliberate, aggressive actions guided by the president’s whole-of-government national strategy to end the pandemic,” Zients said.

He said the current seven-day average is 2.5 million shots per day, a new record pace “that we will continue to build on” in our weekly vaccination progress report.

Zients said the country would loan a portion of our releasable AstraZeneca vaccine to Mexico and Canada.

“This action will allow our neighbors to meet a critical vaccination need in their countries, providing more protection immediately across the North American continent. In total, we will loan Mexico and Canada around 4 million doses,” he said.

He clarified that the loan would not reduce the available supply of vaccines to Americans.

“The doses we are loaning are not approved for use in the United States. No American will be without a vaccine because of this action.”

The overall tally of Covid-19 cases in the US has reached nearly 29.8 million.

The number of deaths due to the virus stood at 540,970, according to Johns Hopkins University.

California is now the worst-hit state by the pandemic with 57,251 deaths, followed by New York (49,335), Texas (47,198), Florida (32,651), Pennsylvania (24,758), New Jersey (24,103), and Illinois (23,304).

In terms of infections, California has 3.6 million cases, followed by Texas (2.7 million), Florida (2 million), New York (1.77 million), and Illinois (1.2 million).

The death toll far exceeds the lower limit of the initial estimates of the White House under then-President Donald Trump’s administration that had predicted 100,000 and 240,000 fatalities due to the pandemic.

The new president has predicted that more than 600,000 people in the country will die from the virus. EFE-EPA

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