The latest on the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines

More than 4 million doses of coronavirus vaccine were administered over the past day in the US, setting a new record and bringing the seven-day average past 3 million a day, according to US centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Dr. Cyrus Shahpar, Covid-19 Data Director at the White House, took to Twitter to celebrate the numbers.

CDC data showed more than 161 million coronavirus vaccine doses have now been given to people in the US.

More than 161 million Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered in the US, according to data published Saturday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The CDC reported 161,688,422 administered doses, about 77.8% of the 207,866,645 doses distributed. That’s 4,081,959 doses reported administered since Friday, for a seven-day average of 3,072,527 doses per day. 

Of the 104 million people who have received at least one dose, more than 59 million are fully vaccinated, CDC data showed.  

Data published by the CDC may be delayed, and doses may not have been given on the day reported.  

The current surge of coronavirus cases in Michigan and parts of Canada may foreshadow what’s to come elsewhere in the US as people move around more and a contagious viral variant spreads, one expert modeling the pandemic said Saturday.

Ali Mokdad, of the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), said via Twitter that the more easily transmitted B.1.1.7 variant first seen in Britain is fueling the spread, but so is people’s behavior.

On Thursday: The IHME upped its estimate of how many people are likely to die from coronavirus in the US by July 1 to 609,000 deaths, up from 600,000 in last week’s forecast.

The spread of new variants may be in part to blame, but so is the relaxation of social distancing and mask mandates, the IHME said.

“Overly rapid reopening, well documented in the rapid increases in mobility in the US, increases the risk of an April/May surge despite rapid scale-up of vaccination,” Mokdad tweeted. "The trajectory of the pandemic requires stronger preventive measures and depends on the behavioral response in terms of vaccine confidence, mask-wearing, and avoidance of situations that pose a high risk for transmission.”

More than 10 million coronavirus vaccine doses have been administered across the state of New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office announced in a press statement Saturday.

There were 1.4 million doses administered in the state over the past week, his office added.

"Our mission to get every New Yorker vaccinated for the Covid virus and to do it equitably has been without precedent … We reached this 10 million shots milestone thanks to the heroic work of our providers and those who have staffed vaccination sites around the clock to carry out this unprecedented operation,” Cuomo said.

Even as more Americans are getting vaccinated against Covid-19, everyone needs to continue wearing masks until the science shows otherwise, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Saturday. 

“That's the reason why we say when that happens, we'll pull back on the recommendation of saying people who are vaccinated should continue to wear masks,” he added. “You want to be conservative on the side of saying, wait until we get data, where we can definitively prove that.” 

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said there are variables at play that make it difficult to say whether and when Americans will be able to relax on mask-wearing. 

“If we get a major surge and we have a continuation of an increase in cases, it is conceivable that we may be having to wear masks in 2022,” he noted. “But if we continue to get people vaccinated, and we get the overwhelming majority of people together with those that have been infected and the level of infection goes way down, we very likely will not have to.” 

Friday set another pandemic era record for air travel in the United States.

The Transportation Security Administration said it screened 1,580,785 million people at airports on Friday.

Air travel figures continue to rise during this spring break period even as health experts fret over rising coronavirus infection rates in some states.

Friday’s figure marked the 23rd straight day when more than a million people have flown by air.

In the continued move toward a sense of normalcy in the Covid-19 pandemic, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday that fully vaccinated people can travel at low risk to themselves.

The agency said that as long as coronavirus precautions are taken, including mask wearing, fully vaccinated people can travel within the United States without first getting tested for Covid-19 or self-quarantining following trips.

The CDC considers someone fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the last required dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Some context: It has been nearly 109 days since the first Covid-19 vaccine shot was administered in the US, and nearly 102 million people in the country have since received at least one dose, the agency said. With more than 30.6 million people having been infected with the virus and 554,074 people who have died of it, experts and officials are racing to get the population vaccinated before a possible fourth surge of cases.

And though progress is being made with President Joe Biden saying Friday that a record 20 million vaccine doses were administered this week, health experts warn that more progress is needed before all Americans can consider the fight against the pandemic over.

The CDC still advises anyone who has not received the vaccine to avoid travel. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said she is still concerned about the pandemic and advises against non-essential travel altogether.

Read more here.

More than 100 million people in the United States have received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine, White House Covid-19 Data Director Cyrus Shahpar tweeted Friday.

Nearly 4 million more doses have been reported administered since yesterday, for a record-high seven-day average of nearly 3 million doses per day, according to Shahpar's tweet. 

Full details are expected to be published on the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Covid-19 data dashboard this afternoon.