Bloomberg: More Americans have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine than have tested positive

As of Monday, more Americans have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine than have tested positive for the disease, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker.

Bloomberg’s data on vaccinations shows that 26.5 million Americans have received one or more doses of the vaccine, surpassing the total of almost 26.3 million coronavirus cases that Johns Hopkins University has recorded.

Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker has determined the U.S. is vaccinating people at a higher rate than any other country, with about 1.34 million shots given per day. 

Since the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine became the first available in the U.S. last month, followed by the Moderna vaccine, almost 7.8 percent of Americans have received one or more doses of a vaccine and 1.8 percent, or 5.82 million, have received the necessary two doses.

According to Bloomberg, three other nations reached the milestone of having more vaccinations than confirmed cases before the U.S.: Israel, the U.K. and the United Arab Emirates.

In the U.S., deaths and hospitalizations rose to unprecedented heights in January and have just begun to decrease. 

The vaccinations get the country closer to herd immunity, which will prevent the virus from spreading. Health experts — including the U.S.’s top infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci — estimate that between 70 percent and 85 percent of the American population needs to be vaccinated to reach that point. 

Countries around the world are currently dealing with COVID-19 variants, first found in the U.K. and South Africa, that are believed to be more contagious than the original strain. Initial studies of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have suggested it is still effective against mutations in these strains.