Since the release of the coronavirus vaccine, America has administered a total of 183,467,709 vaccine doses which brings them to the leading country in the world. This means that 35.3% of the population has received at least one dose and 21.3% are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although there has been an amazing numbers of vaccines administered, outbreaks across the United States still continue. Most recently, a spike in cases has been seen in Michigan. They have reported 6,892 new cases and 74 deaths on Saturday and 7,834 cases Friday for a total of 738,023 cases and 16,500 cases since the start of the pandemic.

Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan told Face the Nation on Sunday that he has asked the White House to increase vaccine supply to combat this flare-up of cases. He explained Michigan’s situation by saying “We kept our spread low for a long period of time, so we’ve got reservoirs of people that don’t have antibodies, we have variants, a big presence of variants here in Michigan that are easier to catch. And people are tired, and they’re moving around more.” The Biden administration rejected Whitmers request to have more vaccines delivered, but offered more vaccinators and resources to get more people vaccinated.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner and current Pfizer board member responded to Michigan’s status by saying the White House should adopt a habit of surging COVID-19 resources to hotspots. Gottlieb explained his idea that there won’t be a pandemic anymore in the future, but there will be hotspots that will flare up. He also voiced his opinion about the excess of vaccines in American cities and towns by saying, “I think a lot of states are going to see themselves with excess supply and excess appointments. So it’s going to be a shame and look back in retrospect and realize that we probably should have put more vaccine into some of these hot spots to snuff them out earlier.”

On April 16th, the Biden administration decided to send a mass vaccination site to Alabama in order to reach vaccine equity. There has been a total of 35 of these sites administered in 26 states across America. Biden plans to administer 218 million doses by his 100th day in office. This means that about 3.3 million people a day need to get vaccinated in order to reach this goal. Besides the Johnson and Johnson vaccine causing blood clots, it seems as if we are doing a good job and on our way to things going back to normal.