By Ahmed Aboulenein and Susan Heavey
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -At least 400,000 people in the United States have received booster doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine after U.S. health regulators cleared the third round of shots for millions of people, and a million more are seeking them, the White House said on Tuesday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week backed an additional dose https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-cdc-advisers-recommend-covid-19-vaccine-boosters-65-older-high-risk-2021-09-23 of the vaccine for people aged 65 and older, adults with underlying medical conditions that put them at risk for severe COVID-19 and adults in high-risk working and institutional settings.
“Just over this past weekend at pharmacies alone, over 400,000 Americans received the additional protection of a booster and almost 1 million people have already scheduled their booster shots through pharmacies over the coming weeks,” White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters.
The United States had an average of 95,000 COVID-19 cases, 8,500 hospitalizations and more than 1,300 deaths in its most recent seven-day period, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at the same briefing.
Over 70 million eligible people remain unvaccinated, Walensky added, and only 30% of pregnant women have received the vaccine. Expecting mothers were included on the list of those eligible for boosters.
(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein and Susan Heavey; Additional reporting by Carl O’Donnell in New York; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Bill Berkrot)
