Harris to start vaccination tour with stops in South Carolina, Georgia

Vice President Harris will travel to South Carolina and Georgia next week, her first stops on a national vaccination tour as the Biden administration makes a final push to meet its coronavirus vaccine goal for the Fourth of July.

Harris will visit Greenville, S.C., on Monday and Atlanta on June 18. The vaccination tour, led by the vice president, is part of the White House’s National Month of Action on vaccines as it seeks to reach its goal of 70 percent of adults having at least one shot by July 4.

South Carolina and Georgia each have roughly 40 percent of their respective state populations vaccinated, according to Mayo Clinic data. Harris is expected to make additional stops in the southern U.S. as part of the vaccination tour, and other administration officials, such as first lady Jill Biden and Cabinet officials, are also expected to get involved with the push in other parts of the country.

President Biden announced at the start of June the national month of action, which included the We Can Do This national tour. Harris has been tasked with reaching Americans in key communities who have yet to get the shot and to “mobilize grassroots vaccine education and outreach efforts.”

More than 172 million people have gotten at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine in the United States as of Friday morning, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which accounts for 52 percent of the population.

Even as the Biden administration works to vaccinate reluctant Americans or those who are difficult to reach domestically, the president announced Thursday the U.S. would give 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine as part of an effort to vaccinate the world against the virus.