More than one million people received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in the United States, said on Wednesday (12/23/2020) the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Robert Redfield, Despite some delays in the program, while experts foresee a return of the country to normality by the boreal summer.
“The United States today achieved an early but important milestone: Jurisdictions have reported that more than one million people have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine since its administration began 10 days ago,” Redfield said.
However, Moncef Slaoui, senior advisor to the government’s immunization program, explained that the goal of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of the year “will probably not be reached.” The United States still aims to immunize 100 million people before the end of the first quarter of 2021, and another 100 million before the end of the second quarter, Slaoui added.
Redfield asked Americans to continue to respect social distancing and the use of masks until all citizens of the country are vaccinated. At the same time, the virus continues to spread in the country: more than 210,000 infections were reported on Wednesday in the United States, the most mourned in the world by the pandemic with 325,000 deaths.
Two vaccines, those of Pfizer-BioNTech and Modern, have so far been approved for distribution by the United States health authorities, which began their vaccination campaign on December 14.
Anthony Fauci, a highly respected figure in the United States in the fight against COVID-19, said that – if the operation to vaccinate the population goes smoothly – the country could achieve a level of 70-85 percent of immunity for the next summer. “When it occurs there will be an umbrella of protection over the entire country,” he predicted.
ama (afp, Reuters)
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