Within the first week of COVID-19 vaccines available to 12- to 15-year-olds, more than 600,000 kids have received their first dose, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a White House press briefing.
“In less than one week, we have vaccinated more than 600,000 12- to 15-year-olds,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky said in the briefing. In total, more than 3.5 million adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 have been vaccinated so far, she continued. “My own son was one of them.”
So far, 60% of people over the age of 18 in the U.S. have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and about 48% are fully vaccinated, according to data from the CDC.
Recently, the Food and Drug Administration gave emergency authorization for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to be used in kids ages 12 to 15. The Moderna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines can be given only to people 18 and older.
“We have truly made tremendous strides across the country to ensure people have access to vaccines. And there is still a lot of work for us to do ahead,” Dr. Walensky said in the press briefing. “We are more than 274 million doses administered. If you haven’t yet been vaccinated, perhaps you will consider being our reason to celebrate one more.”