Officials with President Joe Biden’s coronavirus task force say 110 million Americans will be fully vaccinated by the end of Friday, with a total of 150 million vaccinated through the first shot.
“We are far ahead of where anyone thought we would be in our war against the virus,” said Jeffrey Zients, the White House coronavirus task force director. “Importantly, as we continue to vaccinate more people, cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue to fall.”
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Director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Rochelle Walensky said that the seven-day average of COVID-19 cases is about 45,800 cases per day, a decrease of about 13% from the previous seven-day average. She says the seven-day average of deaths per day is 656.
Meanwhile, drugmaker Pfizer has begun the process to earn full U.S. regulatory approval for its COVID-19 vaccine for people aged 16 and older.
“We anticipate that it will complete that application across the coming weeks. These reviews generally take a few months is our understanding,” Zients said. “This is all over at the FDA, of course. Given the nature of the pandemic, FDA will move as expeditiously as possible without compromising its gold standard for safety.”
That gives Pfizer and German partner BioNTech a shot at winning the first full approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The companies are aiming to win full regulatory approval “in the coming months.”
The partners also applied to the FDA to expand the current emergency authorization to people ages 12 to 15. They plan to seek full approval for that age group once they have the required six months of follow-up data from the volunteers tested in that group. They’re also testing the shot in younger children and pregnant women.