Just ten days after the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine were shipped out, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says over 1 million Americans have received their first dose of the virus.
The agency’s website states that 1,008,025 doses have been administered, and 9,465,725 doses have been distributed.
On December 11, the Food and Drug Administration issued the first emergency use authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine — which was made by Pfizer and BioNTech. And a week later, it issued an emergency use authorization for Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine.
The first doses of the Moderna vaccine began to be shipped out on Sunday.
The amount of Americans who have received a dose is far short of the government’s previously announced goal. Government officials have claimed that they could vaccinate 20 million Americans by the end of December.
Dr. Moncef Slaoui said in November that he expects roughly 20-35 million Americans will be vaccinated per month.
The Department of Health Human Services announced on Wednesday that the government would purchase another 100 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
Pfizer said it expects to deliver 70 million doses by June 30.
The country is currently seeing an average of 215,974 new cases per day. Meanwhile, 324,948 Americans have died from the virus, while 117,777 are hospitalized from it.