By Hanna Park
(WASHINGTON) Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to South Carolina and Georgia next week for her first stops on a national vaccination tour as the Biden administration makes a final push towards meeting its coronavirus vaccine goal by the Fourth of July, USA Today reports.
On Monday, Harris will visit Greenville, S.C., and Atlanta on June 18. The vaccination tour, led by the vice president, is part of the White House’s National Month of Action on vaccines as it aims to reach its goal of vaccinating 70% of U.S. adults with at least one shot by July 4.
First Lady Jill Biden, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and members of the cabinet are also making stops in North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana throughout the week.
"I don’t want to see the country that is already too divided become divided in a new way between places where people live free from fear of COVID and places where, when the fall arrives, death and severe illnesses return," Biden said, per USA Today.
Officials will be visiting pop-up clinics, churches and college campuses to engage and encourage historically underserved communities to get vaccinated.
South Carolina and Georgia each have about 40% of their respective state residents vaccinated, according to Mayo Clinic.
As part of the vaccination tour, Harris will make further stops in the southern U.S., which has particularly lagged behind in vaccination rates.
Biden previously declared June as the national month of action, which included the "We Can Do This" national tour. Harris has been tasked with mobilizing “grassroots vaccine education and outreach efforts,” particularly among vulnerable communities that have not yet been vaccinated.
More than 172 million Americans, or 52% of the U.S. population, have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine as of Friday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.