Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Most states require parental consent at this point, though the landscape may be shifting slightly as more jurisdictions seek to encourage vaccination of young people. Parents and parental consent laws will play a critical role in the COVID-19 vaccination effort to reach children in the U.S., particularly as authorization moves to even younger ages.

Before the FDA expanded the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine emergency use authorization for 12 to 15 year olds this week, the latest KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor reported that 30 percent of parents of children ages 12 to 15 said they would get their child vaccinated right away.

Staffing to administer the COVID-19 vaccines is now the most common challenge for community health centers’ vaccination programs, overtaking the previously reported vaccine supply challenges.

Among excess deaths in 2020, the average person lost 14 years of life in the U.S. compared to an average of 8 years in peer countries before the age of 75. The higher premature excess mortality rate among people of color in the U.S., and in the U.S. as a whole compared to similar countries, is likely due in part to higher COVID-19 risk factor rates and broader racial inequities.

On March 19, 2021, the Biden Administration reached its goal of administering 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine since President Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021, by closing the day at 118,313,818. As of that day, over one-fifth (23.5%) of the U.S. population had received at least one dose of the vaccine.

Just over half (54%) of people who received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine from health centers were people of color, including 26% who were Hispanic and 12% who were Black. These shares are much higher than the shares of nationwide vaccinations. Learn more in this Chart of the Week.

As of Feb. 14, 2021, weekly new deaths among nursing home residents have decreased by 83% since long-term care vaccination efforts started at the end of December, compared to a 67% increase in new deaths among all non-nursing home residents during the same period. Learn more in this Chart of the Week.

Here’s a breakdown of how states are including “high-risk medical conditions” in their vaccination priority groups. Among the 50 states and DC, 37 have provided explicit information on what conditions they consider “high risk.” Learn more in this Chart of the Week.

In the January report from the COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor, the lack of information around where and when to get the COVID-19 vaccine is particularly pronounced among Hispanic and Black adults compared to White Adults. Learn more in this Chart of the Week.

In January 2021, the number of deaths from COVID-19 increased so rapidly that it has clearly become the number one cause of death in the U.S., with an average of more than 3,000 people per day dying of COVID-19 in the U.S. as of Jan. 26. Learn more in this Chart of the Week from the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker.