Hi, I'm Dan Premack, and welcome to Axios Recap, presented by General Motors.

Today is Wednesday, March 17th.

Homebuilding material prices are up, tech stocks are down, and we're focused on the race to vaccinate America.

According to the CDC, 15.1% of Americans 18 or older are now fully vaccinated for COVID-19.

If you include those who've received just one shot of the Pfizer-Moderna vaccine, the figure rises to nearly 28% or a whopping 64.6% of those 65 and older.

It's a pretty remarkable accomplishment, given that the first vaccine wasn't even

approved until around Thanksgiving and then all the missteps with early distribution

at the federal, state, and local levels.

It's also extraordinarily important.

Widespread vaccination is what lets America return to being,

well, America, along with all the economic and social activity that entails. So the big question now

is what comes next. President Biden last week said that all Americans over 16 years old

should be made eligible for vaccination no later than May 1st.

Two states, Alaska and Mississippi, have already made that move, with several others saying

they're soon to follow. My home state of Massachusetts, just this morning, announced

general availability beginning on April 19th. But some are raising questions that certain more vulnerable groups,

higher-risk patients, are being passed by, particularly in a state like Mississippi, which opened up

despite ranking near the bottom of per capita vaccinations. So we want to dig into the current

state of vaccination with Dr. Zika Manuel, a former White House health policy

advisor and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University

of Pennsylvania.

That conversation in 15 seconds.

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