(CNN) — At least 25 states and the District of Columbia have fully vaccinated at least half of their adults, data released Sunday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows.
Those states are Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Dakota del South, Vermont, Virginia, Washington State and Wisconsin.
The state with the highest proportion of adults who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 is Maine, with more than 62% of people over the age of 18 having completed their vaccinations.
Across the US, approximately 61.3% of American adults have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and approximately 49.6% are fully vaccinated, CDC data shows.
More than 49% of the country’s total population has received at least one vaccine, while more than 39% of the population is fully vaccinated, the data shows.
The impact of vaccines is now obvious: The country is recording some of the lowest covid-19 metrics in about a year, and officials say it could soon be even better than that.
“Across the country, COVID-19 cases, serious illness and loss of life have dropped dramatically,” White House senior covid-19 adviser Andy Slavitt said during a briefing on Friday. “And they can be further reduced and the risk of a future wave in your community can be significantly reduced if we keep pace with vaccinations.”
This is the average number of covid-19 cases in the US.
In the past week, the U.S. averaged more than 25,000 new cases and more than 540 new deaths from covid-19 a day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Those are still high numbers, experts say.
But they are way below where we used to be a few weeks ago. The average daily cases of covid-19 in the country during the last week fell by 57% compared to just a month ago, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
And the seven-day average of daily deaths from COVID-19 has dropped 23% from a month ago, according to that data.
“People who are getting infected now tend to be younger people, less vulnerable to infection, because a large part of the vulnerable population has been vaccinated,” said Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration ( FDA), on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
More than 85% of Americans 65 and older have received at least one dose of COVID-19, and nearly 74% are fully vaccinated, CDC data shows.
“People most likely to have problems with COVID-19 have now been protected through vaccination and you are seeing a rapid decline in the rate of new hospitalizations as a result of that,” Gottlieb added.
Kids don’t need masks outdoors, says expert
Gottlieb also said Sunday that he doesn’t think kids need to wear masks outdoors and that the CDC will have to revise its guide to summer camps.
At the end of April, the agency said that in summer camps, people who can get vaccinated against covid-19 must do so, but everyone must wear masks, distancing will still be necessary and it is best to stay outdoors.
“Wearing a mask, you know, it’s hard in the summer when it’s hot and I don’t think the risk is worth that,” Gottlieb said. “But I think parents should do a risk assessment of the environment in which the child will be.”
For example, in crowded indoor environments, it is reasonable for children to wear masks, he said.
The CDC has said it is working to update its summer camp guide.
Since there is no vaccine for children under the age of 12, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said last week that children and adults who are not yet fully vaccinated against COVID-19 still need to wear face masks in certain settings.
Children should continue to wear masks in public places as they have during the pandemic, particularly when social distancing is not possible, said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, chair of the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases.
Children can remove the masks when they are with family members of the same household or in small gatherings with fully vaccinated family and friends and during water sports, such as swimming, or activities in which the masks could pose a safety risk, such as gymnastics.
Children under the age of 2 also don’t need to wear masks, Maldonado said.
CNN’s Naomi Thomas, Michael Nedelman, and Ben Tinker contributed to this report.
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