How ‘Vaccine Day’ Could Boost Inoculations
Public health advocates are pushing a citywide series of events in Boston to lay the groundwork for a one-time federal holiday to celebrate frontline workers — and win over the vaccine-hesitant.
Buttons that read "I got Vaccinated at Fenway Park" are distributed at a mass Covid-19 vaccination site at Fenway Park in Boston in January.
Photographer: Adam Glanzman/BloombergIn the last week, the U.S. Covid-19 vaccination rate accelerated to 2.43 million doses per day, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker. More than 100 million Americans have received vaccine doses, and over 30 million people have fully vaccinated. The Biden administration is aiming to ramp up vaccine distribution and expand eligibility to all adults by no later than May 1. ‘’
As the supply of shots grows, vaccine hesitancy has emerged as a serious impediment to conquering the pandemic. Polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation indicates that 55% of Americans intend to get a Covid-19 vaccine, but recent surveys show a stark partisan gap on the issue, with about 50% of Republican men indicating they have no plans to receive any of the three federally approved vaccines. “If we don’t have 80-plus percent of the population vaccinated before next winter, this virus is going to come back raging," Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory committee, told NBC News.