CHICAGO – President-Elect Joseph Biden has issued an operational challenge to his Administration. Give 100 million shots to Americans in his first 100 days in office.
“We’ve just crossed 330,000 deaths in America,” Biden said Tuesday afternoon in a COVID-19 briefing to the public. “We’re averaging daily death rates of nearly 2,200 people.
Which means we’ll lose tens of thousands of lives in the months to come.”
The President-Elect cited additional cases and corresponding deaths anticipated out of the holidays as he prepares to lean into taking office January 20th.
“People getting infected today, don’t show up in cases for weeks. Those who perish from the disease die weeks after initial exposure, so we have to anticipate that the infections over the holidays will produce soaring case counts in January, and soaring death counts into February.” Biden explained.
During the briefing, Biden took shots at criticizing the Trump Administration’s distribution of the vaccine, noting a proposed timeline by Trump officials falling behind schedule.
“A few weeks ago, the Trump Administration suggested 20 million Americans could be vaccinated by the end of December. With only a few days left in December, we’ve only vaccinated a few million so far. At the pace of the vaccination program moving now, as it continues to move now, it’s going to take years, not months to vaccinate the American people.” Biden said this afternoon.
As a result of what could be called a ‘vaccine crawl’ across America, President-Elect Biden announced his Administration will challenge itself to assure 100 million shots have been administered in the first 100 days in office.
“Congress provides the funding; we’ll be able to meet this incredible goal. It would take ramping up five to six times the current pace to one-million shots per day. Even with that improvement, even if we boosted the speed of vaccinations to one-million shots per day, it will still take months to have the majority of the United States population vaccinated.” Biden said Tuesday. “This is going to be the greatest operational challenge we’ve ever faced as a nation, but we’re going to get it done. Its going to take a vast, new effort to get things underway.”
