US President Joe Biden has set a new target for himself and his team of administering at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose to 70% of the country’s adult population and having 160 million adults fully vaccinated by July 4.

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“Two months from today … families across the country are going to celebrate the Fourth of July. Our goal, by July Fourth, is to have 70% of adult Americans with at least one shot and at least 160 Americans fully vaccinated,” Biden said, adding that no one should wait to get vaccinated.

“At least with one shot before that day,” he said in an appeal to the American people.

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Biden, having spent months focussing on ramping up supply and distribution of the vaccines, is now working to combat vaccine hesitancy.

How will Biden meet this goal?

The US President plans to direct tens of thousands of pharmacies to offer walk-in appointments. He will add more resources to support pop-up clinics, smaller community vaccination sites and more mobile clinics.

Team Biden will also ensure the allocations of COVID-19 vaccines to rural health clinics across the nation to help communities conduct outreach to help get more Americans vaccinated. The task taken up by the President will require around 100 million additional vaccines in the next two months.

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So far, more than 105 million US citizens have been fully vaccinated, according to data from the US Centers Disease Control and Prevention, and 147 million Americans have had at least one dose of vaccine.

The country’s daily tally of Covid cases and deaths is now about one-fifth of what they were during their winter peaks.

Plans to vaccine children

As soon as a COVID-19 vaccine is cleared for use in the US for this age group, a federal government official told CNN, adding that the FDA could authorize Pfizer/BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine in children and teens ages 12 to 15 by early next week.