The United States continues to outdo every country in the world in the extent of daily vaccinations against COVID-19, and on Friday, established a record of 3.4 million shots in one day.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this world record brings the U.S. seven-day average of doses administered to 2.62 million shots per day. So far, 137 million doses have been administered to Americans over the past three months. Of this total, only 15 million were administered under the Trump administration due to Trump's downplaying the pandemic's extent.
Last week, the U.S. vaccinated an average of 2.2 million persons per day. It set the old record of 3.2 million vaccinations in a single day on March 14.
The U.S. began its disjointed vaccination campaign on Dec. 14, 2020, under the Trump administration. On March 19, President Joe Biden proudly announced his administration had achieved its aim of 100 million vaccinations but in only 58 days instead of his target of 100 days.
"I'm proud to announce that tomorrow (March 19), 58 days into our administration, we will have met our goal," said Biden.
"Today, 65% of people aged 65 or older have received at least one shot, and 36% are fully vaccinated," according to Biden. "And that's key -- because this is a population that represents 80% of the well over 500,000 COVID-19 deaths that have occurred in America."
Biden said the U.S. is "way ahead of schedule, but we've got a long way to go."
On Friday, CDC said 27% of the U.S. population had received at least one vaccine shot, and 14.7% of the population is fully vaccinated. The three vaccines currently being administered in the U.S. were developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Inc, and Johnson & Johnson.
The latest vaccination rate is 2.62 million doses per day, on average. The U.S. vaccination success led President Joe Biden last Thursday to announce a new goal of 200 million vaccinations being given within his first 100 days in office. The Biden administration on March 19 surpassed its original goal of having 100 million shots administered within the same time period.
The ramped-up pace of vaccinations is timely since the U.S. is now recording at least 58,600 new COVID-19 cases and at least 960 virus-related deaths each day, based on Johns Hopkins University data as of Friday.
The U.S. has recorded 30.13 million COVID-19 cases since the pandemic reached U.S. shores in January 2020. It also has to mourn at least 548,000 deaths.
