Biden admin backs dating sites to boost plateauing vaccination campaign in US

A Covid-19 vaccine can save your life and get you a date.

The Biden White House on Friday threw its support behind - somewhat awkwardly - vaccination features introduced on dating apps such as Tinder, Match and Hinge.

"We have finally found the one thing that makes us all more attractive: a vaccination," Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to President Joe Biden on coronavirus response, said at a White House briefing.

Vaccinated people are 14% more likely to get a date, he added, citing data from OKCupid, a dating app.

These sites plan to - or have already - introduce a feature that allows users to display badges announcing they are vaccinated and filter out respondents who are not.

More than 161 million Americans have been vaccinated, receiving at least one dose of the two-shot Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines or one and final of single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. That is 57.6% of the eligible population, 12 and older now, and 48.6% of the total population.

The number of shots administered every day is plateauing in many American states, and vaccine hesitancy is now seen as key hurdle by public health experts and officials.

The Biden administration has tried various initiatives to overcome it, and encourage Americans to get inoculated, starting with the president and the first lady Jill Biden getting their shots publicly on live telecast.

Their predecessors Donald Trump and Melania Trump got theirs' quietly and unannounced, in keeping with the former president's reluctance to acknowledge publicly the magnitude of the threat posed by SARS-Cov2, the virus that causes Covid-19, despite being fully aware of it privately.

The Biden administration has made it possible for Americans to find a vaccination centre within 8km of wherever they live and has announced that Lyft and Uber are offering free rides to these centres, and back.

Slavitt insisted it is an initiative of the dating apps, but the New York Times reported citing unidentified officials that the White House rallied the apps to participate.

Dating apps have 50 million Americans among their users. And, the Biden administration finds that an effective way to broaden its vaccination effort.

"Social distancing and dating were always a bit of a challenging combination," Slavitt said, announcing the industry-wide vaccine feature.

He added: "So today, dating sites like Bumble, Tinder, Hinge, Match, OkCupid, BLK, Chispa, Plenty of Fish, and Badoo are announcing a series of features to encourage vaccinations and help people … meet people who have that universally attractive quality: They've been vaccinated against Covid-19."

The awkward part of the announcement? "Alright, got through that," said Slavitt, after announcing the initiative, relieved seemingly.