Adult population of US to be vaccinated by May: Joe Biden

In a bid to meet the set targets for coronavirus vaccine, US President Joe Biden has made a significant announcement promising vaccination for all adults by the end of May.

On Tuesday, Biden announced a new partnership between Johnson & Johnson and its competitor pharmaceutical company Merck, with an aim to increase vaccine production in the country.

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"The fight against COVID-19 is a war-time effort — and to win, we need breakthrough approaches," Biden said.

This has come a few weeks after Biden had announced that his administration hopes to vaccinate all the adult population of the country by the end of July.

"Three weeks ago, I announced we would have enough vaccine supply for all Americans by the end of July," Biden tweeted. "Now, with our efforts to ramp up production, we will have enough vaccines for every American by the end of May."

Hailing it as one of the biggest partnerships in the pharma field, in the past one year, Biden said this is "the type of collaboration between companies we saw in World War II".

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With the emergency approval given to Johnson & Johnson's coronavirus vaccine by the US authorities, the Biden administration is hoping to further ramp up its speed of the mass vaccination programme as the single-dose vaccine can be much faster, in comparison to double-dose vaccines of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

In addition to giving hopes of vaccinating all adults by the end of May, Biden has also urged authorities to concentrate on vaccinating educators, with the aim of reopening schools soon.

"Today, I am directing every state to prioritise educators for vaccination. We want every educator, school staff member, and child-care worker to receive at least one shot by the end of this month," Biden tweeted. "It’s time to treat in-person learning like the essential service that it is."