Biden sets goal of at least one shot to 70 percent of adults by July 4

President Biden announced Tuesday a goal to administer at least one shot of the coronavirus vaccine to 70 percent of U.S. adults by July 4, as the country moves to vaccinate harder-to-reach Americans.

Biden, in a speech Tuesday afternoon at the White House, also set a goal to have 160 million U.S. adults fully vaccinated by Independence Day.

Together, those goals will mean about 100 million more shots, both first and second doses, across the next 60 days, a senior administration official said.

The goal also acknowledges a slowdown in the pace of vaccinations.

Only about 35 million more adults need to get their first shot to reach the 70 percent goal, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) figures. Reaching the goal would mean about 180 million adults have at least one dose, up from about 145 million, or 56 percent of the population, currently.

The average number of shots per day has been falling in recent weeks, though it is still at about 2.2 million, according to figures from Our World in Data.