WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The first known case of a highly infectious coronavirus variant in the United States was detected in Colorado on Tuesday, and President-elect Joe Biden said it could take years for most Americans to be vaccinated against the virus at current rates. distribution.
Biden’s prediction of a gloomy winter has been aimed at lowering public expectations that the pandemic will end shortly after he takes office on Jan. 20, while also sending a message to Congress that his administration will want to Significantly increase spending to accelerate vaccine distribution testing and funding to states to help reopen schools.
Biden, a Democrat, said about 2 million people had been vaccinated, in addition to the 20 million promised by outgoing Republican President Donald Trump by the end of the year. Biden defeated Trump in the November election.
“As I feared and warned, the effort to distribute and administer the vaccine is not progressing as it should,” Biden said in Wilmington, Delaware. At the current rate, “it will take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people.”
Shortly after his remarks, Colorado Governor Jared Polis announced on Twitter that his state had discovered a case of variant B.1.1.7 of an extremely infectious coronavirus first detected in the United Kingdom.
Today we discovered the first case in Colorado of variant B.1.1.7 COVID-19, the same variant discovered in Great Britain.
The health and safety of Coloradans is our top priority and we will monitor this case very closely, as well as all COVID-19 indicators. pic.twitter.com/fjyq7QhzBi
– Governor Jared Polis (@GovofCO) December 29, 2020
Biden’s goal of ensuring that 100 million photos are managed by the end of the 100th day of office would mean “five to six times the current rate increase to 1 million photos per day.” Biden said, noting that Congress would need to approve additional funding.
“Even with this improvement, even if we increase the rate of vaccinations to 1 million photos a day, it will take months before most of the United States population is vaccinated,” he said. He predicted that the situation may not improve until “much by March”.
Biden also said he intends to invoke the Defense Production Act, which gives the president the power to expand industrial production of key materials or products for national security or other reasons, to “accelerate the manufacture of vaccine materials.”
Trump himself invoked the law during the pandemic.
To reopen schools safely, Biden said Congress will need to provide funding for things like extra transportation so students can maintain social distance and improved ventilation in school buildings.
Congress must also help facilitate access to COVID-19 tests and pay for protective equipment for health care workers, Biden added.
Harris gets the vaccine
Earlier that day, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris received a live COVID-19 vaccination on television in an attempt to boost confidence in inoculation, even as he warned that months would pass before it was available to everyone.
Harris, who is black and Asian American, received the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine from a nurse wearing a mask and visor at a predominantly black medical center in southeast Washington.
The Biden team stressed the importance of encouraging vaccine distribution and inoculation in non-white groups, especially those affected by coronavirus.
Biden has vowed to make it a top priority in the fight against coronavirus, which has infected more than 19 million people in the United States and killed more than 334,000. The first injected dose of the vaccine was received live on television last week. Two doses are required for complete protection.
Trump, who had COVID-19 in October, often reduced the severity of the pandemic and oversaw a response that many health experts consider disorganized and chivalrous, and sometimes ignored the science behind the transmission of the disease.
Biden repeated his call that people wear masks and listen to the advice of medical experts to avoid the spread of the infection.
Dr. Atul Gawande, a member of Biden’s COVID-19 advisory committee, told CBS News that the transition team does not yet have all the information it needs to understand the blockages that prevent vaccine distribution.
He said the Trump administration could have set unrealistic expectations that anyone who wanted to get vaccinated could do so by the end of June 2021.
Separately, Tuesday, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suspended voting on Trump’s call to increase COVID-19 aid controls for Americans to $ 2,000, a rare challenge for his Republican counterparts. Biden said he was in favor of raising from an already approved $ 600 dollar.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Susan Heavey, Lisa Lambert and David Brunnstrom; Writing by David Brunnstrom and Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Jonathan Oatis and Howard Goller)