As of Wednesday, the federal government had distributed 46.4 million vaccine doses to states and other jurisdictions, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So far, almost 34 million people, or 10% of the U.S. population, have received at least one dose of the vaccine. Nearly 10.5 million people, or 3% of the population, have received both doses.
President Joe Biden, who is moving to ease supply bottlenecks, announced Thursday that the U.S. will have enough supply of the two-dose vaccine by the end of the summer to inoculate 300 million Americans. He said the U.S. had secured contractual commitments from Moderna and Pfizer to deliver the 600 million doses by the end of July — more than a month earlier than initially anticipated.
Older Americans have borne the brunt of the deaths and hospitalizations from the virus, which has claimed more than 473, 000 lives in the U.S. About 80% of the people who have died from COVID have been adults 65 and older.