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The White House publicly acknowledged on Tuesday that President Biden did not expect to meet his goal of having 70 percent of adults at least partly vaccinated by July 4 and instead would reach that milestone only with people older than 26. It would be the first time that Mr. Biden has failed to meet a vaccination goal he has set. If the rate of adult vaccinations continues on the current seven-day average, the country will come in just shy of his target, with about 67 percent of adults having at least one shot by July 4, according to a New York Times analysis. (LaFraniere, 6/22)

Today [Tuesday], Jeff Zients, White House COVID-19 coordinator, announced that among adults age 30 and older, 70% have met President Joe Biden's goal of receiving at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine before the Fourth of July. "We got here because the president treated this as a wartime effort," Zients said, explaining that among adults over age 45, 75% have had at least one dose. In total, since Biden took office, 150 million vaccine doses have been administered, and now 56% of Americans are fully vaccinated against the virus, he said. (Soucheray, 6/22)

The U.S. government is stepping up efforts to get younger Americans vaccinated for COVID-19 as the White House acknowledges it will miss two key vaccination benchmarks and as concern grows about the spread of a new variant that threatens to set the country back in the months ahead. The delta variant, first identified in India, in the last two weeks has come to represent more than 20% of coronavirus infections in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday. That’s double what it was when the CDC last reported on the variant’s prevalence. (Miller, 6/22)

President Biden Tuesday confirmed what had become apparent in recent days, that the country would miss his stated target of having 70 percent of Americans vaccinated by July 4. The announcement came on the same day Governor Charlie Baker declared that Massachusetts had finally hit its goal of 4.1 million inoculated adults. The divergent results at the national and state level paint yet another portrait of two Americas, as vaccination rates have dropped off nationally over the last month despite vaccines becoming more available. In announcing that the milestone was reached in Massachusetts, Baker praised medical workers on the front lines of the vaccination effort. (Finucane and Stoico, 6/22)

California has reached a milestone with more than 70% of eligible residents at least partly vaccinated, driven by many Bay Area counties that have topped the 80% mark, yet immunization remains highly varied around the Golden State as it does across the rest of the country. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday noted the state’s progress inoculating residents 12 and older and credited recent incentives like drawings for cash prizes and vacations with boosting vaccination 22% over a one-week period. The 70% figure is important because the more people who are immunized against COVID-19, the harder it is for the virus to spread, as the vaccines provide strong protection against infection and serious illness. Though infection rates have plummeted in most of the U.S., the disease continues to spread in some states and around the world, driven by aggressive variants. (Woolfolk and Blair Rowan, 6/22)

First lady Jill Biden visited one of the states least vaccinated against COVID-19 on Tuesday, encouraging residents of Mississippi to get their shots and telling them, “The White House, our administration — we care about you.” “I’m here today to ask all of the people who can hear my voice, who can see my face, to get their shot,” Biden said after visiting a clinic at Jackson State University, one of the largest historically Black universities in the country. Biden later encouraged people who were getting vaccinated in Nashville, Tennessee, with the help of country singer Brad Paisley later Tuesday evening. (Willingham, 6/23)