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A U.S. Army Soldier from the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division immunizes Jacklina Mendez with the COVID-19 vaccine at the Miami Dade College North Campus on March 9, 2021 in North Miami, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
The Biden administration will allow a wider range of medical workers, including dentists, vets, paramedics and medical students, to begin administering Covid-19 injections as part of its wartime effort to bring the country closer to normal by midsummer.
The US Department of Health and Human Services is using its authority under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act to allow more medical professionals and qualified students to administer the vaccines, the agency said in a statement Friday.
This means dentists, paramedics, midwives, optometrists, paramedics, medical assistants, podiatrists, respiratory therapists and veterinarians can begin administering Covid-19 vaccines nationwide, according to HHS. .
It also allows “medical students, nursing students and other health care students in the professions listed in the PREP law with appropriate training and professional supervision to act as vaccinators,” the statement said.
The move comes after President Joe Biden announced Thursday evening that he would order all U.S. states, tribes and territories to make all adults aged 18 and over eligible for coronavirus vaccines by May 1.
The President, in his first prime-time address to the nation on the first anniversary of the pandemic, said the goal was for Americans to be able to come together in small groups in person to celebrate July 4. .
“This doesn’t mean everyone will receive a photo immediately, but May 1 is the date every adult will be eligible to sign up for the vaccine,” Biden’s Covid Czar Jeff Zients said during ‘a press briefing on Friday. “By the end of May, we expect to have enough vaccines for all adults in this country.”
The United States now administers a weekly average of 2.2 million vaccines per day. About 65% of Americans aged 65 and over are now vaccinated, Zients said. Just over a quarter of adults 18 and older have now received at least one shot of the vaccine, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We are making progress, but there is still work to be done,” he said.
On Monday, the CDC released its first set of guidelines for fully vaccinated people, which say they can now mingle with other vaccinated people indoors without masks or social distancing.
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