50 days in, Biden has made significant progress towards reaching his vaccination goal

President Joe Biden promised the month before he took office that he would be singularly focused on delivering vaccines to Americans, with a specific goal of delivering 100 million shots into arms in his first 100 days in office. 

Initially, that 100 million shots translated to 50 million people being fully vaccinated. At the time Biden was inaugurated, only the Pfizer-BioNTech  and Moderna vaccines had been authorized for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration. Both vaccines are two-dose regimens. 

Achieving the goal of 100 million shots in 100 days meant vaccines had to be administered at a rate of 1 million or more per day. When Biden took office on January 20, vaccines were being administered at about a rate of 900,000 per day. 

Now on day 50 of his administration, Biden and his team have more than doubled that initial vaccination rate.  

According to both the Washington Post's vaccine tracker and Bloomberg's COVID Vaccine tracker, an average of 2.17 million doses were administered per day in the last week, from March 3 to March 10. Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to the president, said during a  coronavirus press briefing March 8, that the U.S. set a record over the previous weekend by administering 2.9 million vaccinations in a day. 

In total, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine tracker reports the U.S. has administered more than 95.7 million vaccine doses. Sixty-two million people have received at least one vaccine dose, and 32 million people are fully vaccinated. The majority of these vaccine administrations have occurred since Biden took office. When former President Donald Trump left the White House about 12 million Americans had been vaccinated. 

It is expected that vaccine supply will increase in the coming months, likely adding to the pace and momentum. 

Since assuming office, the Biden administration bought another 300 million vaccine doses outside of the contracts finalized during the Trump administration. The U.S. so far has purchase agreements in place for a total of 800 million doses of vaccine, which is enough to vaccinate 500 million people (The Johnson & Johnson vaccine only requires one dose). 

Biden also has started using the Defense Production Act (or DPA) to speed up the production of vaccines. In February, the president invoked the DPA to give Pfizer priority for the raw materials and equipment needed to manufacture vaccines. And on March 3, Biden announced that Merck, a drugmaker competitor, had agreed to manufacture J&J's covid-19 vaccine in their facilities. Some J&J facilities have also agreed to operate for 24 hours to boost production. 

With all of these actions to increase vaccine supply and speed up production (and the vaccine administration number already at 95 million), it seems very likely that Biden will reach his goal of 100 million shots well before the end of his first 100 days. And he has also made significant progress towards getting 50 million Americans fully vaccinated, with 32 million receiving their full set of doses so far. 

"I think we are well on track to meet that goal," said Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, a group which represents state public health agencies. 

Recently, Biden has indicated that he's starting to look at what's next if he achieves his 100 million shots in 100 days. At a press conference last week, Biden issued a new promise: that by the end of May, there will be enough vaccines to inoculate every U.S. adult. 

We rate this promise In the Works.