you re as safe as possible. you re in good shape. and we re doing everything we can to keep it that way, which is where the booster comes in. so let me be clear, yes, we made incredible progress in vaccinating americans with over 182 million people being fully vaccinated as of today. but this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated, and it s caused by the fact that despite americans having an unprecedented and successful vaccination program, despite the fact that for almost five months free vaccines have been available in 0880,000 vaccinations, we have over 70 million americans who have failed to get a single shot. to make matters worse, there are elected officials actively working to undermine with false information the fight against covid-19. this is totally unacceptable. the vast majority of americans
and she s 100 years young. the park ranger inspiring america. this is nbc nightly news with lester holt good evening tonight some clarity on exactly who gets a place in the front of the line for the covid booster shots of pfizer s vaccine which were okayed by the fda last night for certain americans. tonight, a cdc committee endorsing the shots for those 65 and older and for certain adults with underlying medical conditions 182 million or 55% of americans are now considered fully vaccinated almost 100 million with the pfizer vaccine but for now it appears most of them, including front line workers will not be eligible for the boosters, which have been shown to increase covid antibodies miguel almaguer has late details. reporter: the cdc advisory committee signed off today for the roughly 100 million americans fully vaccinated with pfizer well over 11 million can now get a booster after fda
you re as safe as possible. you re in good shape. and we re doing everything we can to keep i that way, which is where the booster comes in. so let me be clear. yes, we made incredible progress in vaccinating americans. with over 182 million people being fully vaccinated, as of today. but this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. and it s caused by the fact that despite americans having an unprecedented and successful vaccination program, despite the fact that for almost five months, free vaccines have been available in 80,000 locations, we still have over 70 million americans who will fail to get a single shot. and to make matters worse, there are elected officials actively working to undermine with false information the fight against covid-19. this is totally unacceptable. the vast majority of americans
vaccinated americans per day. you are as safe as possible and in good shape. we re doing everything we can to keep it that way. which is where the booster comes in. so let me be clear. yes, we made incredible progress in vaccinating americans with over 182 million people being fully vaccinated as of today. but this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. and it is caused by the fact that despite americans having an unprecedented and successful vaccination program, despite the fact that for almost five months free vaccines have been available in 80,000 locations, we still have we still have over 70 million americans who have failed to get a single shot. to make matters worse there are elected official he actively working with false information the fight against covid-19.
and who do they call they call their physician friend and say how do i gain the system. reporter: meantime, international pressure has been growing on the u.s. not to widely distribute booster shots while much of the world still waits for first doses. during a virtual covid summit today, president biden announced the u.s. will buy half a billion pfizer vaccines and donate them to low-income countries calling the pandemic an all hands on deck global situation. i m proud that we ve gone from two million americans being fully vaccinated when i first took office on january 20th to 182 million and counting today in america but we also know that to beat the pandemic here we need to beat it everywhere. stephanie, we also got news today that maybe we have hit the peak of this current surge. yeah, lester this is good news nbc news data showing that we may have hit the peak last week, that seven out of the last eight days cases have dropped. that s the longest sustained decline that we