Biden to set July 4 vaccination goal

President Joe R. Biden will announce his administration’s new COVID-19 vaccination goal of fully vaccinating 160 million U.S. adults and reaching 70 percent having received at least one shot by July 4.

According to a fact sheet from the White House, the administration will seek to increase walk-in appointments, pop-up clinics, and mobile units in the effort to make vaccines more available to everyone in the country. Biden will direct pharmacies in the federal pharmacy program to offer walk-in appointments. Federal Emergency Management Agency resources will support more pop-up clinics, smaller community vaccination sites, and more mobile clinics.

The administration will also ship new allocations of vaccines to rural clinics across the country and will provide additional funds to help communities with outreach and engagement to get people vaccinated, according to the fact sheet.

Getting adolescents vaccinated as soon as possible is also a priority if the vaccines receive emergency use authorization, with a full push from the Office of the Surgeon General, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health to answer the questions of parents and teens about the vaccines, the fact sheet says.