President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that the United States will have enough coronavirus vaccines by the end of the summer to inoculate 300 million Americans, which is most of the nation's population.
The Biden administration secured two final contracts for 100 million more vaccine doses, one from Moderna
The new agreements, announced while Biden was on tour at the National Institutes of Health, will bring the nation's vaccine total to over 600 million doses delivered by the end of July, the Associated Press reports.
The nation's supply could further increase if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves Johnson & Johnson's
The Biden administration has been moving quickly to increase the nation's infrastructure to carry-out the massive vaccine campaign needed to inoculate hundreds of millions of people. To date, about 36 million Americans have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to data compiled by the U.S. Centers of Disease Control (C.D.C.), which is over 10% of the population.
Despite the federal government's ongoing efforts to administer vaccine as fast as possible, the U.S. still faces a threat from multiple highly-transmissible coronavirus variants that are spreading silently through communities.
According to a new study conducted by the C.DC., wearing two masks--a cloth mask over a disposable surgical mask--can help significantly reduce the risk of exposure to the coronavirus, thus effectively protecting against the new mutations. Double-masking protects by improving the mask's fit by making sure it hugs an individuals face without any gaps that the virus can escape out from.
C.D.C. researchers conducted a study were they placed two artificial heads six feet apart and simulated breathing in different scenarios, measures how many COVID-sized particles that were exhaled by one head were inhaled by the other.
Researchers found that just wearing one mask, either surgical or cloth, blocked just over 40% of the particles from an unmasked head's simulated breathing, but two maks blocked about 80%. Moveover, when both head wore two masks, over 95% of particles were blocked.
The health agency's research comes at a crucial time in the nation's outbreak, as cases, hospitalization, and death rates are beginning to fall from the holiday-induced surge. Health officials fear that the new coronavirus variants could harm the country's progress and potentially cause another surge if public health guidelines are not followed.
