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The average rate of first doses administered in the United States has nearly doubled in the past month, according to a federal government tally. The hike is the latest sign of growing interest in the shootings amid rising COVID-19 cases across the country and a push to vaccinate children ahead of the new school year.
Nationally, the country was averaging about 441,198 new vaccinations per day as of August 5, according to figures released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This represents a 95% increase from the simple average of 226,209 first doses recorded a month earlier, on July 5.
The sharp turnaround comes after the average pace of new vaccinations plummeted for months, hitting a low of around 218,696 on July 7.
Since then, the rate of first doses has steadily increased in almost all states. Some of the biggest increases have come in areas that were long behind the national immunization average and are now besieged by spikes in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
In Alabama, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the United States, the average rate of new vaccinations has climbed more than 100% according to CDC figures on July 22. The next largest increase was in Louisiana, where the first hits accelerated 84%, followed by Nebraska and Minnesota. Alabama and Louisiana are among the states that have seen some of the most severe COVID-19 outbreaks so far this summer.
Most of the first doses in the past two weeks have gone to adults between the ages of 25 and 39. This group made up more than 25% of all Americans who started their COVID-19 vaccination schedules in the past two weeks.
Some of these new first doses may have been prompted by a growing list of employers moving push their workers to get the snapshots, including hospital employees and government employees. The share of unvaccinated Americans who said they would receive a COVID-19 vaccine “only if necessary” fell from 6% to 3% last month, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey.
However, the biggest increase in first doses over the past month has been in children. More than 4 in 10 adolescents, aged 12 to 15, now have at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine – up 8.5% from the previous month. The share of older teens who had at least one injection climbed 6.5 percentage points over the past month to over 50% nationally.
Last week, the Biden administration touted its own efforts to help school districts get students vaccinated. For older teens heading to college, some 675 campuses have decided to require vaccinations for at least some of their students or staff, according to a tally from The Chronicle of Higher Education.
And since many children have yet to be fully immunized, many public health experts have renewed calls on states not to loosen mitigation measures until the next school year.
“Despite a high adult immunization rate, the risks of school transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and resulting infections among students, educators / staff and their household members remain high when delta variant predominates and students are not vaccinated, ”concluded the authors of a recent study funded in part by the CDC, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.
While children tend to cope with less severe symptoms of the disease, many are now flocking to hospitals in record numbers with COVID-19. Federal health officials have said they are investigating the increase in cases of the COVID-19 Delta variant in children.
“Look, I understand that there are millions of people who have decided – adults – who have decided not to get the vaccine. And I understand that harassing these people probably won’t make them move and get the vaccine,” President Biden told reporters on Tuesday. “But I also understand that the reason children get infected is that, in most cases, they live in states and communities with low immunization rates, and they get it from unvaccinated adults.”
“And so, my plea is that for those who are not vaccinated: think about it,” added the president.
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