(AP) – The number of Americans vaccinated with COVID-19 is steadily increasing as older people and people with medical conditions seek boosters and, by government and employer orders, force more workers to get their first vaccination. Has increased to a height of 3 months.

Demand is expected to skyrocket in the coming weeks if regulators approve Pfizer vaccines for elementary school students, and some states are resuming mass vaccination clinics in anticipation.

In Missouri, a mass vaccination site for an old Toys’R’Us store will open on Monday. Virginia plans to deploy nine large immunization centers in the coming weeks, including one at the Richmond International Raceway.

Colorado opened four mass vaccination sites in mid-September, primarily to address Employer obligations, And authorities confirmed a 38% increase in vaccination across the state in the first week.

The total dose administered in the United States has increased towards an average of 1 million doses per day, almost double the level in mid-July, but still well below last spring. This increase is primarily due to boosters, with nearly 10% of the population over the age of 65 already taking third shots, but there are signs that demand from other groups is also increasing.

Dr. Cyrus Sharper, COVID-19 data director at the White House, said Thursday that 1.1 million doses had been given, including over 306,000 to newly vaccinated people.

Organizers of efforts to reach approximately 67 million unvaccinated American adults say the increase in demand is due to Pfizer booster approval. Calm statistics It shows that almost all COVID-19 deaths are in unvaccinated.

“Some people need shots to keep working,” said Dr. Ricardo Gonzalez Fisher, who runs a mobile vaccine clinic primarily for Latino Americans in Colorado.

Last weekend, his clinic delivered 30 shots to people outside the Mexican Consulate in Denver. “Recently, 30 is a very good number,” he said.

Dr. Danny Avla, Virginia’s Vaccine Coordinator, said opening a large vaccination center will allow the local health sector to focus on reaching poorly serviced communities. “This should really help ease the burden on local providers,” he said.

Ryan McKay, who oversees the COVID-19 project in the Blue Ridge Health District, said last week that the number of people firing at the mall in Charlottesville, Virginia doubled from the previous week.

He said the current major impetus lies in low-priced areas. The health district has set up mobile clinics for weekend basketball tournaments, high school football games, and even a corner market where 20 people are vaccinated a day.

“These 20 vaccinations sound small, but it’s a real success,” McKay said.

Vice President Kamala Harris stopped at the Vaccine Center in Newark, NJ on Friday to meet with patients and healthcare professionals and recommend injections to people.

“This has an end,” she said. “I feel we are really starting to face this.”

Alba Lopez, Ohio, tired of the twice-weekly tests required by his employer Chase Bank, fills out an online form daily to show his fever and mood, and then Pfizer at the Columbus Public Health Department on Friday. I decided to get the vaccine. ..

The vaccine “helped to avoid it all,” Lopez said. Lopez also thought that her company would eventually need it.

Health officials in Springfield, Missouri are the early epicenters of the Delta Serge. Open a new vaccination site This is because the former toy store is expected to have an influx of people.

Approximately 28 million or more US children May be eligible For shots of weight-loss children as early as November, if approved by the regulatory agency. Regulators have not yet addressed the issue of booster shots for people vaccinated with Moderna or Johnson & Johnson, but it could happen soon.

John Mooney, Assistant Director of Springfield-Greene County Health Department, said: “Demand has already risen in the last couple of weeks.”

Although cases in the Springfield area are declining, 78 people continue to be hospitalized in the city, and federal officials have determined that community infections remain high.

24-year-old Mitchell Maccarone took a second shot Thursday at a CVS pharmacy in North Smithfield, Rhode Island. He wanted to wait for the vaccine to be fully approved by the FDA.

“I want to make sure it’s fully approved before I put anything in my body,” he said. “I’m not in the high-risk age group either. I was healthy and infected with COVID, but it was really a snuff.”

Vaccination sites opened last week in Memphis, Tennessee and Tampa, Florida attract most people seeking booster shots, with only a handful of people taking the first or second shot, and expecting increased demand. Said.

The surge in vaccination in Louisiana began in August, when so many people became ill from the highly contagious delta variant, said Sherry Tyrone, Vaccine Incentive Coordinator for the State Department of Health. Said.

But now few people are asking for their first vaccination, and most of the people who come for boosters are older people, who were rushed to get vaccinated last winter, she said. And COVID-19 Deaths and hospitalizations are declining..

“Fear is gone again,” she said. “I think it’s only fear to get people vaccinated at this point.”

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Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. The Associated Press writer Heather Hollingsworth of Mission Kansas, Jennifer McDermott of Providence, Rhode Island, and Andrew Welsh Huggins of Columbus, Ohio contributed to this report.