A US Army soldier from the 2nd Armored Combat Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, immunizes Jacklina Mendez with the COVID-19 vaccine at the Miami Dade College North Campus on March 9, 2021 in North Miami, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
The Biden government will allow a broader range of medical professionals, including dentists, veterinarians, paramedics and medical students, to begin administering Covid-19 vaccines as part of their “wartime” effort to make the country more close to normal until the middle of summer.
The United States Department of Health and Human Services is using its authority under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act to authorize more qualified medical professionals and students to administer the injections, the agency said in a statement on Friday.
This means that dentists, paramedics, midwives, optometrists, paramedics, medical assistants, podiatrists, respiratory therapists and veterinarians can begin to administer Covid-19 vaccines across the country, according to the HHS.
It also authorizes “medical students, nursing students and other health students in the professions listed in the PREP Act with adequate training and professional supervision to serve as vaccinators,” the statement said.
The move comes after President Joe Biden announced on Thursday night that he will target all U.S. states, tribes and territories to make all adults, aged 18 and over, eligible for vaccines against HIV. coronavirus until May 1st.
The president, during his first prime-time address to the nation on the pandemic’s one-year anniversary, said the goal is for Americans to be able to meet in small face-to-face groups to celebrate July 4.
“This does not mean that everyone will receive the injection immediately, but May 1 is the date that all adults will be eligible to apply for the injection,” Biden’s Covid Czar Jeff Zients said at a news conference on Friday. “By the end of May, we hope to have sufficient vaccine supplies for all adults in this country.”
The US now administers a weekly average of 2.2 million vaccines a day. Approximately 65% of Americans aged 65 and over are now inoculated, said Zients. Just over a quarter of adults aged 18 and over have received at least one vaccine injection, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We are making progress, but there is more work to be done,” he said.
On Monday, the CDC released its first set of guidelines for people who are fully vaccinated, which they say they can now mix with other vaccinated people at home, without masks or social distance.