WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - President Joe Biden made a personal appeal to all Americans to take the anti-corona vaccine and stick to COVID protocols so that progress the country worked so hard to achieve in the fight against the pandemic is not reversed.
'We've vaccinated more people than any other nation on Earth. The vaccines have proven to be safe and effective. That should give us real hope, but we can't let it make us complacent,' Biden said while delivering remarks after crossing 150 million vaccine shots in the first 75 days of his administration.
'I'm still looking forward to the prospect if we keep the pace we're on and we listen to one another and take the precautions I talked about, that you'll be able to win independence from COVID on Fourth of July, the Independence Day,' Biden said after visiting a vaccination clinic in Alexandria, Virginia.
'Even moving at the record speed we're moving at, we're not even halfway through vaccinating over 300 million Americans,' he added.
The President announced that by April 19, all adult Americans will be eligible to get the vaccine.
He told reporters that the number of people who are reluctant to take the vaccine continues to diminish across the country.
Biden claimed that the United States is the first country to administer 150 million shots and the first country to fully vaccinate more than 62 million people.
'The good news is we're on track to beat our goal of 200 million shots in the first 100 days. More than 75 percent of the people over the age of 65 have gotten shots, up from 8 percent when we took office. That's a dramatic turnaround and critical because seniors account for 80 percent of all COVID deaths'.
Biden said that while the country is making incredible progress, there is also some bad news. 'New variants of the virus are spreading and they're moving quickly. Cases are going back up. Hospitalizations are no longer declining. While deaths are still way down from January, they're going up in some places.'
62004 new coronavirus cases were reported in the United States on Tuesday, taking the national total to 30847167.
907 new deaths were reported in the country on the same day, which is higher than the weekly average of 788. With this, the total COVID death toll in the U.S. increased to 556528.
California and Texas, the two worst-affected states, together accounted for 173 deaths, while most cases - 6106 - were reported in New York.
According to latest CDC estimates, nearly 80 percent of teachers, school staff and childcare workers in the U.S. received at least one shot of corona vaccine by the end of March. 'Our push to ensure that teachers, school staff, and childcare workers were vaccinated during March has paid off and paved the way for safer in-person learning,' said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky.
Meanwhile, Tuesday marked the most deadly day for Brazil due to COVID. More than 4,000 fatalities were reported in 24 hours in the Latin American country, where a more contagious variant of coronavirus fuels a surge in cases.
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