Health Experts Offer Good News on Vaccines, but Also a Warning

It was a banner weekend for coronavirus vaccinations in America, with the CDC administering a record number of shots. Per an agency data tracker, those numbers include 2.9 million vaccinations on Saturday and 2.4 million on Sunday, reports CNBC. That comes after nearly 2.5 million people were vaccinated in Friday's count, per Forbes. Both outlets note that, on average, more than 2 million people are getting vaccinated daily—three times as many as at the beginning of the year. All together, 23% of US adults 18 and over have gotten at least one jab so far, while just over 10% have received two. Meanwhile, President Biden has said there should be enough vaccine doses to go around for all American adults by the end of May.

But despite the good news on this front, health officials are issuing a warning. "We need to make sure that we do not let down our guard," Jeff Zients, who heads up the White House's coronavirus task force, said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, noting that citizens should keep wearing face masks, adhering to social distancing, and signing up for the vaccine as soon as they're eligible. "We need to stay on this path and beat this pandemic." Zients' caution comes as at least half a dozen states—including Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina, California, Arizona, and Alabama—started easing up on restrictions for businesses and announcing plans to drop mask mandates. One of the reasons experts are nervous about such actions is the emergence of virus variants that could throw a wrench in progress so far. We're "in the eye of the hurricane right now," was the analogy offered by a CDC rep on the NBC program. (More coronavirus vaccine stories.)