the daily pace of covid vaccinations has increased in about a dozen countries due to the arrival of the more contagious delta variant and governments expanding their vaccination drives a data analysis by reuters foundisraels rate of vaccinations has seen a sharp pickup the netherlands norway portugal saudi arabia singapore and spain are all vaccinating at their fastest speed to date belgium denmark finland and sweden are not far behindbut it is a different story in the united states at its current declining pace 70 of the us population will not receive a first dose of vaccine until december 1 according to the reuters analysis of our world in data vaccination figuresat the current pace canada chile the united kingdom and eight others will reach that benchmark before the end of the month and if the current pace is maintained five more countries will hit 70 by the end of august those dates could change depending on many factors including approvals to vaccinate younger children vaccination burnoutin israel the vaccination rate had plateaued in april as new covid infections were on a monthslong steady decline but when the arrival of delta brought a spike of cases in june the government jumped in quickly with a new campaign urging teenagers to get the shot and parents to vaccinate their children aged 12 to 15in many countries vaccination drives slowed before reaching 70 or more of the population a threshold some experts say could help largely curb covid19 transmission through socalled herd immunity when combined with people who developed immunity following an infection the ability of the coronavirus to mutate quickly into new variants such as delta that reduce the effectiveness of vaccines has cast doubt on whether herd immunity can be achieved however various governments have still set national vaccination goals close to that number to encourage citizens to get inoculated the european union for instance has distributed enough vaccines for 70 of its populationin some places regulators have just recently authorized use of the shots in 12 to 15 year olds in others supply is catching up with demandmany of those countries had initially focused on giving shots to older populations and other highrisk groups the pfizerbiontech vaccine has been authorized by the us and european union for people aged 12 and over but others such as astrazeneca are only available to adultswith the spread of the delta variant countries are trying to reignite their campaigns by overcoming skepticism about the vaccine and misconceptions that the young do not need a shotheidi larson director of the international vaccine confidence project and a professor at the london school of hygiene and tropical medicine said a rise in vaccinations due to delta variant concerns may have been held back by changes seen as signalling an end to the pandemic such as lifting mask mandates and travel banswere giving a lot of mixed messages right now larson said israel is an exception she said it has reimposed measures such as requiring mask