Media Spin Master

President Joe Biden is setting new goals for vaccinations in America, calling for 70% of the U.S. adult population to have at least one shot, and 160 million Americans to be fully vaccinated, by July 4.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that, as of Tuesday, 105 million Americans are fully vaccinated, while 147 million have had at least one dose.

“To hit 70% of adults by July, 4, you need to deliver close to 100 million doses, shots, across the next 60 days or so. Some first shots, many second shots, over the next 60 days,” a senior administration official estimated on a call with reporters Tuesday shortly before Biden was set to speak.

Over the past 60 days, about 153 million doses have been distributed, so the new goal would represent a significant slowdown.

In the past, the administration has set goals that some public health experts have criticized as being low targets.

This is a developing story, please check back for updates.

Ahead of a fatal training accident, Marine Pfc. Jack Ryan Ostrovsky shared his reservations about the safety of assault amphibious vehicles, or AAVs, according to his father, Peter Ostrovsky.

“A week before the AAV incident, Jack Ryan told me about his concerns with the AAVs, and that they sink all the time. It was hard for me to believe that statement, but now I know there was more to the story that was the basis for his concern,” Ostrovsky told lawmakers on Capitol Hill Monday.

Ostrovsky was one of eight Marines and one sailor who perished at sea last summer when their AAV took on water and sank off the coast of Southern California. A command investigation has since identified it as a preventable tragedy.

“First and foremost, the sinking of this AAV and the deaths of eight Marines and one sailor were preventable, preventable in so many ways,” Assistant Commandant Gen. Gary L. Thomas told the House Armed Services Committee in his opening remarks. “But we failed. We failed these brave young men.”

The military investigation concluded that rough waters and a long string of human and mechanical failures ranging from insufficient water escape training to poorly maintained vehicles led to the accident.

Peter Vienna, stepfather of Navy Corpsman Christopher “Bobby” Gnem, one of the deceased, took umbrage with the tragedy being called a “mishap” during his testimony.

“An AAV crew that did not follow its own emergency SOPs — had they done so the AAV still would have sunk, but not with our boys in it,” Vienna said. “I point that back at leadership’s failed duty to properly train and certify that group, just another result of a terrible lack of readiness.”

Several congressmen with experience in AAVs from their own time in the Marines expressed similar concerns during Monday’s hearing.

“I spent a lot of time in an AAV, including in waterborne operations — that’s how we got into Baghdad in 2003,” said Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., a former infantry officer. “I can tell you we sat on the roof because we were afraid it would sink.”

Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., was an enlisted infantryman in the Marines.

“I actually spent seven months living on AAVs,” he said during the hearing. “In the great scheme of things somehow the Marine Corps thought the best way to transport men around Iraq was to shove us into a AAVs. They were death traps.”

First Marine Expeditionary Force Commander, Lt. Gen. Joseph Osterman told reporters last August that only two AAVs have sunk in the last 25 years. But the investigation revealed more than half of the vehicles inspected across the fleet were not fully watertight and another half had emergency escape lighting failures — both being problems that contributed to last year’s disaster.

On the morning of July 30, 2020, 13 AAVs assigned to Camp Pendleton’s 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit made a roughly one mile ship-to-shore movement from the USS Somerset to train on San Clemente Island, a Navy-owned piece of land about 60 miles off the Southern California coast. The trouble began in the early evening, when most vehicles took to sea en route back to the ship.

Water began flowing in through several leak-points. While some amount of leakage is expected during amphibious operations, the water is usually drained by on-board bilge pumps before becoming a problem. But that Thursday, a transmission failure left the crew powerless to purge the incoming water.

“When the transmission failed, the hydraulic bilge pumps failed,” Marine Corps Staff Director Maj. Gen. Gregg Olson told lawmakers Monday. “When the transmission failed, the engine went into idle and ceased charging the batteries. And then when the engine compartment itself filled with water, the generator failed and effectively the vehicle was without power.”

The craft began to sink.

The crew raised a distress signal, but contrary to Navy and Marine Corps requirements, there were no safety boats in the water. No help would come for another 20 minutes.

The distressed crew and passengers watched the water slowly rise in their vehicle for 45 minutes before a second AAV arrived to assist. The crew then opened a hatch on top of their sinking craft to prepare for evacuation. But the two vehicles collided, knocking the imperiled AAV sideways in the path of a large incoming wave.

The swell flowed over the AAV, now only about 6 inches above the sea, flooding water through the open hatch. The gradual sinking became rapid. Marines on nearby AAVs watched helplessly as the craft slipped below the surface — 11 of the 16 men still aboard.

If the three-man crew would have had the other Marines and sailor aboard the sinking AAV evacuate sooner, even in full gear, the floatation devices they wore would have been enough to keep them afloat, Olson said.

In early August search crews located the sunken AAV nearly 400 feet under the ocean’s surface. The vehicle was recovered, along with the bodies of all of the service members who were missing up to that point still inside.

Vienna on Monday described the terrible impact the loss of his stepson has had on him and Gnem’s mother.

“She’s suffering both mentally and physically,” Vienna said. “For me, well, frankly, the last nine months, I’ve been on suicide watch.”

Ostrovsky also shared his family’s grief and sorrow with the committee.

“The loss of Jack Ryan has destroyed our family’s future plans. Jack Ryan was supposed to be the next leader of our family, who was going to create his own legacy of success through his military career,” Ostrovsky said.

“Though it is little comfort to the families, we will honor their memory by taking the necessary actions to prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again,” Thomas said.

Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger suspended all AAV waterborne operations the day after the accident while the matter was reviewed. The vehicles remained on land until April 2021.

In subsequent inspections, “We had a problem across the fleet with our watertight integrity: Some 54% of the vehicles that were inspected had failures in the watertight integrity of their plenum doors — that’s the large intakes on the front that permit air to come up in and out of an engine that’s underwater — 18% had cargo hatches that were leaking in excess,” Olson said, “and fully 50% had inoperable emergency escape lighting systems.”

Personnel inside the sinking AAV were in the dark with no working emergency lighting system or chemical lights, which are supposed to be attached to cargo hatch handles by the crew. The men on board resorted to using the flashlights on their personal cellphones as they struggled to open a hatch, the water continuing to rise.

The commanding officers of both 1st Battalion, 4th Marines and the 15th Marine Expeditionary unit have been relieved of posts as a consequence of the accident. A broader command investigation headed by a three-star general was established by Olson on April 2 to look at higher-ranked officers, which could lead to potential disciplinary actions for generals.

Moulton said that while combat training must involve danger, he was not convinced the AAV exercise on July 30 merited the risk.

“The Marine Corps must be the nation’s premier fighting force. We can’t become a Marine Corps that only cares about safety. But we also have to be smart about how we get there,” he said.

All eight Marines killed in the incident served as riflemen in the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines based in Camp Pendleton. The sailor was a Fleet Marine Force corpsman serving alongside them in the infantry unit. Their names, ages and hometowns are as follows:

Lance Cpl. Guillermo S. Perez, 20, of New Braunfels, Texas

Cpl. Wesley A. Rodd, 23, of Harris, Texas

Cpl. Cesar A. Villanueva, 21, of Riverside, California

U.S. Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Christopher Gnem, 22, of Stockton, California

Lance Cpl. Marco A. Barranco, 21, of Montebello, California

Lance Cpl. Chase D. Sweetwood, 19, of Portland, Oregon

Pfc. Bryan J. Baltierra, 18, of Corona, California

Pfc. Evan A. Bath, 19, of Oak Creek, Wisconsin

Pfc. Jack Ryan Ostrovsky, 21, of Bend, Oregon

New York City police are searching for the suspect who was caught on video attacking an Asian woman with a hammer on a Manhattan street.

The 31-year-old victim was walking with another woman in Midtown when the suspect approached and demanded that the two women remove their masks, according to the New York City Police Department.

The suspect then struck the 31-year-old in the head with a hammer before fleeing on foot, police said.

The victim was taken to a hospital for a laceration to her head, police said.

“She was talking to herself, like talking to a wall. I thought maybe she was drunk or something,” the victim, who only wanted to be identified by her first name Theresa, told ABC New York station WABC. “So we just wanted to pass through her quickly. She saw us and said ‘Take off your f—– mask.'”

Theresa moved to New York in 2019 to study for a master’s degree at the Fashion Institute of Technology, WABC reported.

After the pandemic started, she went to Taiwan to stay with her parents and she just returned to New York last month to look for a job, WABC reported.

“My mom actually told me please be careful, there’s a lot of Asian crime happening in America,” Theresa said.

Anti-Asian attacks are on the rise in New York City. One attack was reported in 2019 while 33 were reported last year. So far in 2021, 47 have been reported, according to NYPD data.

The NYPD said its hate crime task force is investigating this latest attack. Anyone with information is urged to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS.

A police officer has been fired and three others could face charges and termination after they were allegedly caught on body-camera footage drag racing and crashing two squad cars on a narrow residential street in Washington, D.C., according to officials.

Acting Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee called the drag-racing incident “embarrassing” during a news conference on Monday, where he also announced a summer crime prevention initiative.

“Obviously, those types of things are unacceptable,” Contee said when reporters asked him for an update on the incident. “It’s certainly something that I do not tolerate as the chief of the Metropolitan Police Department.”

Contee authorized the release on Monday of footage of the April 22 episode taken by one of the officer’s body cameras.

The footage shows two officers parked on a narrow two-lane street about 5:15 p.m. near the Kenilworth Park & Aquatic Gardens in the northeast section of the city when suddenly they speed off down the road. At one point, a police SUV cruiser can be seen pulling up along the passenger side of the squad car and swerving into the vehicle, causing both cars to crash.

The footage shows the airbags inside one of the vehicles deploying and the windshield crack as the squad car comes to a stop and audio from the body-camera video activates. The officer whose body camera recorded the footage gets out of the vehicle, apparently shaken. Someone asks the officer if he was OK and he responds saying, ‘Yeah, I’m good.”

The video also captured the two wrecked police cars facing in the opposite directions and both up on the sidewalk. The two cars each contained two officers, according to officials.

All four officers suffered minor injuries and were treated at a hospital, officials said. The two vehicles that collided sustained major damage, officials said.

The names of the officers were not released.

Contee said on Monday that a probationary officer involved in the incident was fired last week. He said an internal affairs investigation of the other three officers is ongoing and that they could face charges as well as termination.

He said the results of the internal probe will be turned over to the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, who will decide what steps to take next and “if there will be any charges that come out of this investigation.”

At least 23 people were killed and dozens more were injured after an overpass for the Mexico City Metro collapsed on Monday night, sending a subway car full of passengers plunging toward a bustling boulevard below.

The collapse occurred at around 10:30 p.m. local time on Line 12, the newest of Mexico City’s subway lines, which runs underground through more central areas of Mexico’s densely populated capital but then emerges onto elevated structures along the outskirts. A support beam “gave way” just as the train passed over it in the southern borough of Tlahuac, according to Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum.

Footage from the scene showed a crane working to hold up one subway car left hanging from the collapsed section of the overpass, with cars buried under the rubble on the road about 16 feet below.

“We don’t know if they are alive,” Sheinbaum said at a press conference early Tuesday, speaking about the people possibly trapped inside the train and cars.

Emergency crews worked through the night to remove people — dead and alive — from the scene. By early morning, authorities confirmed that there were no more bodies as they began to remove the wreckage.

At least 49 of the 65 people injured were transported to hospitals, including seven who were in serious condition and undergoing surgery, according to Sheinbaum.

“There are, unfortunately, children among the dead,” the mayor told reporters, without specifying how many.

The Mexico City Attorney General’s Office has opened an investigation into the deadly incident.

Authorities will inspect the rest of Line 12 where the collapse happened later Tuesday morning. The subway line, which serves 20 stations, will remain closed in the meantime and hundreds of buses will be brought in to cover the service, according to Sheinbaum.

“This is an unfortunate and serious accident,” she said. “We will report the truth.”

Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard, who was Mexico City’s mayor when Line 12 was built, called the incident “a terrible tragedy.” Soon after Ebrard left office as mayor, the subway line became plagued by structural issues, technical faults and corruption allegations, leading to a partial closure in 2013 so tracks could be repaired.

“Of course, the causes should be investigated and those responsible should be identified,” Ebrard wrote on Twitter. “I repeat that I am entirely at the disposition of authorities to contribute in whatever way is necessary.”

ABC News’ Will Gretsky, Joshua Hoyos and Joseph Simonetti contributed to this report.

Most of the contiguous U.S. experienced a warming trend over the last 30 years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The South and Southwest were “considerably warmer” and normal temperatures generally were warmer across the West and along the East Coast, according to the report.

However, temperatures cooled in the Northern Plains and upper Midwest, and east of the Rocky Mountains averages in precipitation increased.

Less precipitation in the West has led to historic droughts and wildfires, and Southern California, Nevada and Arizona are in the bullseye for a significant decrease in the precipitation, maps show.

“The data is clearly showing the U.S. climate is changing,” Mike Palecki, project manager for NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information’s 1991-to-2020 Climate Normals, told ABC News.

As a result, the growing season has been extended for most states, and climate zones have shifted, Palecki said, describing the changes as “not good.”

In addition, while several regions now get an earlier spring, temperatures still can get cold, which can then kill early blooming plants and damage crops, potentially causing millions or billions of dollars worth of damage into the summer, Palecki said.

Every 10 years, NOAA releases its U.S. Climate Normals report, which calculates temperature and precipitation averages throughout the decade to put current weather trends into proper context and allow the public, weather forecasters and businesses a way to “make better climate-related decisions,” according to the agency.

When comparing the temperatures from 1991 to 2020 to the averages in the 20th century, climate change is “clearly seen,” according to NOAA.

A steady increase in temperatures over the 20th century, especially from the 1970s and later, can be seen as well.

“This simply means that most days in a year are warmer than they should be, according to normal,” Palecki said of the data.

Ahead of President Joe Biden’s first foreign trip to the United Kingdom in June, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in London this week for the first face-to-face-meetings of G-7 foreign ministers in two years.

While the international entourages are limited and strict COVID-testing protocols are required, the gathering, beginning Tuesday, shows an eagerness among member nations to return to in-person diplomacy and get to work on major issues in a post-COVID world. Around the formal G7 conference table, Blinken and his counterparts have removed their masks, but they are separated by plexiglass dividers.

These G-7 meetings with friendly allies will provide a low stakes but high-profile opportunity for Biden’s team to visibly reappear on the world stage, as the president has liked to talk about, and evaluate the country’s position after four years of former President Donald Trump’s “America First” doctrine.

In his first 100 days in office, Biden has emphasized that he sees an urgent need to mend relationships with allies that were complicated and strained under Trump and he has reentered global institutions his predecessor abandoned.

Biden’s push for increased multilateralism, however, comes at an awkward time when so many citizens around the globe are still experiencing physical isolationism in the face of a global pandemic.

While the G-7 nations have applauded their information-sharing and collaborative work fighting the virus, each country has handled the health care crisis very differently and vaccine manufacturing and distribution are still extremely inequitable.

Beyond the pandemic, however, many Americans see the global community as having a fairly poor track record in solving global crises. From the fight against climate change, where emissions are far exceeding goals meant to reduce them, to wars in Syria and Yemen; the recent buildup of Russian troops on Ukraine’s eastern border and allegations of human rights and trade violations by China — the list of emergencies facing and frustrating the G-7 leaders has only grown.

Back home, both Blinken and Biden have a tough job ahead of them and will likely have to continue to make the case to skeptical Americans that multilateralism is worth the time.

“Not a single one of those challenges can be effectively met by any one country acting alone — even the United States, even the United Kingdom. There is, I think, a stronger imperative that at any time since I’ve been involved in these issues to find ways for countries to cooperate, coordinate, to collaborate. That’s the way we advance the interests of our citizens,” Blinken said at a joint news conference with U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab Monday.

The Biden administration’s argument is that U.S. leadership has been lacking and that international crises still require international cooperation. Much of the agenda for this G-7 is structured around threats and competition from Russia and China.

In the last few weeks, Biden has redoubled his focus on China, pitching his domestic agenda as a necessary step for competing with country and calling out Beijing for bad behavior. On Friday, the Biden administration specifically said China had failed to keep commitments to protect American intellectual property as outlined in their recent trade deal.

“It is not our purpose to try to contain China or to hold China down. What we are trying to do is to uphold the international rules-based order that our countries have invested so much in over so many decades,” Blinken said Monday. “When any country, China or otherwise, takes actions that challenge or undermine or seek to erode that rules-based order and not make good on the commitments that they’ve made to that order, we will we will stand up and defend the order.”

Several nations outside of the G-7 were invited to attend events and meetings this week, including South Korea, India, Australia and Brunei, which is chairing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Blinken conducted bilateral meetings with most of those visiting delegations Monday. The teams sat across from each other at long tables in cavernous and otherwise empty hotel conference rooms.

“They’re all key partners for us. I think they’re also a sign of the greater focus on the Indo-Pacific region, as the economic and strategic crucible for this century,” Secretary Raab said at Monday’s news conference.

Prior to the meetings this week, the Group of Seven wealthy industrialized nations also announced they planned to jointly invest $15 billion “in development finance over the next two years to help women in developing countries access jobs, build resilient businesses and respond to the devastating economic impacts of COVID-19.”

The international work on girls’ empowerment feels especially poignant at the moment with U.S. and NATO withdrawing of troops from Afghanistan this summer, causing many human rights experts to worry about the future of Afghan women in civil society should the Taliban increase their power there. Many of the G-7 countries supported the United States’ Afghanistan coalition and have lost their own troops in the war that has lasted nearly 20 years.

This trip to London is Blinken’s first as secretary of state and the U.K.’s first G-7 meeting since Brexit. Blinken did meet with Raab during a NATO meeting in Brussels in late March.

During their news conference Monday, the two secretaries talked liberally about their shared values, mutual agreement on foreign policy and close-knit cooperation.

“I think it’s fair to say the Biden administration is barely 100 days old, but has already taken a huge number of bold and very welcomed steps on issues like climate change, global health and human rights. And that’s really created momentum in efforts to tackle these pressing global issues,” Raab said. When asked if the U.K. felt snubbed by America’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, he demurred.

In turn, when Raab was asked how the U.K. could lead on the global stage when it had decided dramatically recently to cut international aid, Blinken complimented the U.K. on its humanitarian work.

“The U.K. is our most vital partner including working around the world, in helping other countries, helping people fulfill their potential and deal with some of the challenges that have been brought on by many things but including by COVID-19 … we share a commitment to and conviction about the importance of doing development work in different ways and amplifying, as Dominic said, both our respective contributions as well as bringing others along,” Blinken said.

A bomb exploded near a school in western Afghanistan on Monday and wounded 21 people. At least 10 of those injured were students as young as 7, a provincial official said.

No group has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Taliban are active in the area, according to the Associated Press.

The attack comes two days after the U.S. began withdrawing the remaining 2,500 to 3,500 troops from Afghanistan, following President Joe Biden’s plan to be out of the country by Sept. 11 at the latest.

In the last two days there have been almost 300 Taliban attacks in more than two dozen provinces across Afghanistan, according to the Afghan Ministry of Defense.

Former defense minister Tamin Asey told ABC News that the Taliban have not changed, as many fear the group’s violent resurgence amid troop withdrawal.

“The ideology haven’t changed. Their global claim to jihad haven’t changed. They are more confident of their victory and they think that they have defeated the United States and NATO,” Asey said.

Top U.S. military officer General Austin Miller, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces, warned the Taliban that they’ll respond forcefully to any type of attack, according to the Associated Press.

With restrictions on travel to the U.S. from India taking effect Tuesday, the Biden administration, private companies and nonprofits are working to send supplies and aid to help the country ravaged by the pandemic.

There are several exceptions, including for lawful permanent residents, spouses or children of U.S. citizens and green card holders, parents or siblings of a U.S. citizen or green card holder under 21 years old, health care and aid workers, and certain government officials with visas. The U.S. policy also says that flights that take off before the end of the day Monday will still be permitted to land after Tuesday.

The travel ban comes after the case count in India continues to grow rapidly. In 24 hours, the country reported more than 368,000 news cases bringing the total number of cases to more than 19 million, while the total number of deaths is more than 219,000.

The U.S. has sent six air shipments, four of which have already arrived, an official on the National Security Council said Monday. U.S. shipments, which will total $100 million according to the White House, included 125,000 vials of the antiviral drug remdesivir, which is used in the treatment of COVID-19, arrived in India Sunday night.

The State Department, in addition to coordinating U.S. government supplies, has also been urging private businesses to provide support for India in the wake of the crisis.

In a meeting last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a virtual meeting with business leaders “to discuss how the United States and India can leverage the expertise and capabilities of the U.S. private sector to support urgent COVID-19 relief efforts in India,” a press release from State Department spokesperson Ned Price said last week.

Private businesses have been responding to the crisis. Dr. Albert Bourla, the chief executive officer of Pfizer, announced Sunday that the company would donate medicines “valued at more than $70 million.”

“Right now, Pfizer colleagues at distribution centers in the U.S., Europe and Asia are hard at work rushing shipments of Pfizer medicines that the Government of India has identified as part of its COVID treatment protocol,” Bourla said in a letter posted to LinkedIn. “We are donating these medicines to help make sure that every COVID19 patient in every public hospital across the country can have access to the Pfizer medicines they need free of charge.”

The statement also said that Pfizer’s foundation was providing funding for other needed supplies like oxygen concentrators and ventilators.

“Pfizer stands in solidarity with all those currently affected by COVID-19 in India and around the world and will continue to do everything possible to provide assistance,” Bourla said. “As we work to meet the public health need and to be a partner with the Government of India to establish a path forward for our vaccine, please know you and your loved ones are foremost in our thoughts and prayers.”

Businesses are also working with NGOs and nonprofits to provide necessary supplies and funds. Sewa International, a faith-based nonprofit based in Houston, Texas, fundraised enough to send more than 2,000 oxygen concentrators to New Delhi last week. The UPS Foundation joined with the organization to send the shipments free of charge, Sewa International said in a statement Thursday.

“In the midst of this health crisis in India, we are absolutely thrilled to have the support of so many organizations and people in enabling this quick shipment of oxygen-concentrators to India,” Arun Kankani the president of Sewa International said in the statement.

ABC News’ Conor Finnegan, Sarah Kolinovsky and Joseph Simonetti contributed to this report.

A vaccination card will be the ticket for a free brewski in the Garden State this month.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced a “Shot and a Beer” program Monday that provides a free glass of beer at participating locations to anyone over 21 who gets their first vaccination dose this month. The plan is part of Murphy’s multipronged approach to increasing the state’s vaccination numbers and reach its goal of 4.7 million residents vaccinated by the end of June.

The program is one of many initiatives taken by city and state governments to get more people vaccinated, and according to a public health expert, they are effective.

“We need that push,” Dr. Perry N. Halkitis, dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health, told ABC News. “You have to find a way to motivate people. This is one way to do it.”

As of Monday, more than 7.5 million vaccine doses have been administered in New Jersey, and 3.2 million residents — about 37% of the state’s total population — have been fully vaccinated, according to New Jersey’s Health Department. Like most parts of the country, the number of new daily vaccinations has steadily declined over the last few weeks.

As part of the “Shot and a Beer” program, the vaccinated resident can show their vaccination card to 13 participating bars and breweries in the state, and they will be rewarded with one free beer. The bars include the Hackensack Brewing Company, Gaslight Brewery and Restaurant, Battle River Brewing and more.

Residents who received their first shot before May are not eligible, according to a spokesman for Murphy’s office.

“The focus of the drive is to get as many new vaccinations as possible,” Dan Bryan, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, told ABC News.

Halkitis said the fact that the governor’s office is focused on those who haven’t received their shots is critical.

“We’re at the point where those who were already motivated got their vaccinations. We’ve now got to focus on those others,” he said.

Bryan added that more locations may be added to the list of available bars in the coming weeks and that the program was done with the approval of the state Health Department. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not given specific guidance on alcohol use immediately following a vaccine shot.

The state is also taking other measures to increase vaccination numbers, including door-to-door campaigns, phone calls to people who pre-registered for their shot but haven’t gone to their appointments and outreach with community partners.

New Jersey’s beer promotion comes less than a week after Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont announced a similar promotion for his state. However, the Connecticut promotion doesn’t limit the free beers to residents who received shots in May.

Last week, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice announced that younger residents will receive a $100 state bond if they get their shots.

Halkitis said incentives are common in scientce, particularly among clinical trials and studies, and they do appeal to hesitant people. While New Jersey’s beer program won’t likely end vaccine hesitancy, he said, it will help bring the state closer to a fully vaccinated population and cut down on COVID-19 cases.

“Any tool you put in your arsenal is a good tool. It may move the needle 2% or 3%, but it moves the needle,” he said.