As the US continues to accelerate its vaccination campaign, averaging more than 3 million shots a day, those in the most vulnerable age group are leading the way. About 75% of Americans age 65 and older have received at least one shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and more than half are fully vaccinated.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, CDC director Rochelle Walensky said emergency room visits and hospital stays associated with this population age 65 and older are declining.
These trends are “good news in terms of vaccination power,” said Walensky.
US Covid cases
After a drop in daily case numbers due to Easter Sunday when many states failed to report coronavirus data, a Johns Hopkins University tracker shows the US registered about 79,000 new Covid-19 cases as of Monday. The 7-day average of new cases every day is currently at 64,600 after the country’s low of around 53,000 cases per day in late March, but is showing some signs of plateau.
The demographics of those infected with the virus are changing, said CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky on Monday at a press conference in the White House to media representatives.
“As data trends have shown, cases are increasing at the national level and we are seeing this predominantly occur in young adults,” said Walensky.
She added that many of the outbreaks in young people are related to youth sports and extracurricular activities. The risk of outbreak clusters can be prevented with cadenced testing strategies, Walensky said.
The changing population structure is a sign that vaccinations are having an impact, according to Walensky, who cited a decline in emergency room visits and hospital stays for people 65 and older. The majority of this age group have received at least one vaccine.
US Covid deaths
The 7-day average of daily deaths from new coronaviruses is close to 800, according to Johns Hopkins, well below the country’s winter peak.
Walensky said it is not yet known enough whether new virus variants are more deadly.
“With these variants we are still seeing increased transferability. We don’t yet know anything about the increased morbidity and mortality,” she said. “We still have to be very vigilant about these variations.”
US vaccine shots administered
According to the CDC, the United States administers just over 3 million Covid-19 vaccinations per day for an average of seven days.
After four consecutive days of more than 3 million vaccine doses administered, 2.1 million shots were fired on Monday. White House Covid-19 data director Cyrus Shahpar wrote in a tweet that while Monday numbers largely reflect weekend vaccinations and are therefore typically lower, Easter Sunday was also a reason for below-average data reporting.
US percentage of the vaccinated population
Almost a third of the US population has received at least one shot of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to CDC data, with 18.8% of Americans being fully vaccinated.
