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WILMINGTON, DelawarePresident-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday criticized the Trump administration for the pace of distribution of vaccines against the 2019 coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and predicted that “things will get worse before they get better” when it comes to the pandemic.
“We need to be honest – the next few weeks and months are going to be very difficult, very difficult for our nation. Perhaps the hardest during this entire pandemic, ”Biden said during remarks in Wilmington, Delaware on Tuesday.
His comments come as the coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 336,000 Americans, and experts warn that travel and vacation gatherings could precipitate another spike in virus cases, even as the virus has already risen in US states. the whole country.
Biden encouraged Americans to “harden our spines” for the challenges ahead and predicted that “things are going to get worse before they get better.”
He also lashed out at the Trump administration for its vaccination efforts, warning that the project, dubbed Operation Warp Speed, is moving at a slower pace than necessary.
“As I feared and warned for a long time, the effort to distribute and administer the vaccine is not progressing as it should,” he said.
Earlier this month, Trump administration officials said they planned to distribute 20 million doses of the vaccine by the end of the year. But according to data provided by the Centers for Disease Control, just over 11.4 million doses have been distributed and only 2.1 million people have received their first dose.
At the current rate, Biden said, “it will take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people.”
President Donald Trump deflected criticism from Biden. “It is up to the states to distribute the vaccines once the Federal Government takes them to designated areas,” he tweeted Tuesday. “We have not only developed the vaccines, including putting in money to move the process forward quickly, but we have also brought them to the states.”
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany issued a statement Tuesday night saying: “While partisan critics offer nothing but empty rhetoric to scare Americans for political purposes, President Trump gives results. “
Biden, who will take office Jan. 20, said he has led his team to put together a “much more aggressive effort, with more federal involvement and leadership, to get things back on track.”
The president-elect said he would “move heaven and earth to lead us in the right direction.”
He set a goal of administering 100 million injections of the vaccine within his first 100 days in office, but said that to achieve that, the rate of vaccines would have to increase five to six times to 1 million injections per day. However, even at that rate, Biden acknowledged that “it will still take months to vaccinate most Americans.”
Biden acknowledged that one of his challenges will be public skepticism about the safety of a vaccine and has already been working to alleviate public concerns. Biden received her first dose of the vaccine on live television last week, and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris received hers, also on television, on Tuesday.
The president-elect has made the fight against the coronavirus pandemic a central focus of his transition work. He has promised that one of his first acts as president will be to present Congress with a comprehensive coronavirus aid bill that will include funds for expanding vaccines and testing, among other things.
It also has a Covid-19 task force working on ways to optimize the government’s response to the pandemic and help turn the tide of infections. On Tuesday, Biden announced nine new members of his Covid-19 response team, including attendees focused on vaccines, testing, and supply chain management.
Still, Biden warned that it would take months after he took office for Americans to see a positive change in the course of the virus.
“Turning this around will take time. We may not see improvements until well into March as it will take time for our Covid response plan to produce visible progress, ”he said.
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