Biden to move up date for broad vaccine availability
US President Joe Biden will announce today that vaccines will be available to all Americans starting on April 19, two weeks earlier that the May 1 deadline he recently announced.
He will also announce that the US has already delivered 150 million vaccines with about 40% of Americans having received at least one dose.
The next big question will be when and how the US reaches herd immunity. Some are talking about May but a clue that's not the case comes from Israel, where 61% of people have received at least one dose of the vaccine. In turn, daily cases are now running around 250 compared to 10x that in December and 40x that at the peak.
Vaccinations are freely available to everyone and easy to get. One issue is that 20% of Israelis are under-16 an not eligible to be vaccinated while at least 10% have chosen not to get it.
That axis has left the country largely open but certainly not 'back to normal'. It's a reminder that it will be some time until the grand reopening that everyone is pining for arrives.
