More than 600,000 people have died from Covid in the U.S. as officials race to vaccinate more people

The U.S. hit another grim milestone in the pandemic Tuesday, reaching more than 600,000 Covid fatalities as the nation races to administer at least one vaccine shot to 70% of adult Americans by the Fourth of July.

Deaths in the U.S. have been slowing for months, according to Johns Hopkins University data, due largely to an aggressive campaign to vaccinate the nation’s elderly and medically vulnerable people who are most at risk of dying from Covid. About 76% of Americans 65 and older, the group that accounted for a majority of pandemic deaths, have been fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.