(Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden will receive his updated COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday and will urge more Americans to get the latest vaccine, White House spokesman Kevin Munoz said on Sunday.
Only 20 million people in the United States have received an updated COVID vaccine as of last week. White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that was not enough.
“We need everyone to step up and get their vaccine up to date as soon as possible,” he said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that 4.5 million Americans had received the updated vaccine in the last week, the largest weekly increase since the fall vaccination schedule was launched and a 40% increase than the previous week.
The United States began rolling out the updated COVID vaccines in September, designed to tackle the circulating Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants and the original version of the virus.
Biden in July tested positive for COVID with mild symptoms and tested positive in a rebound case seen in a small percentage of people taking the antiviral drug Paxlovid. In August, he tested negative twice, ending his more than two weeks in isolation at the White House.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Ross Colvin and Sam Holmes)
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