US President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced that every adult in the US will be eligible to be vaccinated for COVId-19 by April 19, which is two weeks earlier than May 1 deadline that Biden had previously targeted.
"By no later than April 19, every adult aged 18 years and above will be eligible to be vaccinated. No more confusing rules. No more confusing restrictions," said Biden In his remarks at the White House on Tuesday.
The President also urged senior citizens across the country to get vaccinated before eligibility expanded to all adults on April 19.
Biden said that during his 75 days in office 150 million doses of the vaccine had been administered with 75 per cent of senior citizens having received at least one shot. He said that he expects 200 million vaccinations to be done by the time he completes 100 days in term.
However, the President warned that coronavirus cases in the US were continuing to rise with deadly new variants spreading and that it will take several more months for most adults to be fully vaccinated. He urged for people to continue following social distancing and wear masks.
"Let me be deadly earnest with you. We aren't at the finish line. We still have a lot of work to do. We're still in a life-and-death race against this virus. Until we get more people vaccinated we need everyone to wash their hands, socially distance and mask up in a recommended mask from the CDC," he said.
Before his remarks at the White House, Biden had visiting a vaccination centre in Alexandria, Virginia.
The US President said that the US will share excess vaccine doses with other countries tentatitvely by the end of summer.
"My hope is before the summer is over, I'm talking to you all about how we have even access to more vaccines than we need to take care of every American, and we're helping other poor countries, countries around the world that don't have the money, the time, the expertise," Biden said.
Until this vaccine is available to the world and we're beating back the virus in other countries we're not really completely safe," he said.
( With inputs from ANI )
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