President Joe Biden said Monday he believes it will be “this spring” when every American who wants a COVID-19 vaccine can get one. This is perhaps the most ambitious goal publicly stated by his administration to date.
“I think it will be this spring. I think we can do that this spring,” Mr. Biden said Monday when a reporter asked when an American who wants a vaccine should be able to get one. “But it’s going to be a logistical challenge that surpasses anything we’ve ever tried in this country. But I think we can. I’m confident we’ll be well on the way to herd immunity by the summer. And increasing it. from access for people who are not first on the list, all the way to children and how we interact with them. But I feel good about where we are going and I think we can make it happen. ”
In recent days, officials from the Biden administration had declined in calls and in press conferences to set a specific timeline for when the vaccine will be generally available to the public.
The new president also raised his hopes of how many doses of the vaccine could be administered during his first 100 days in office, revising it from 100 million to 150 million. Some had wondered if the 100 million shots fired by the Biden administration in the first 100 days were ambitious enough, given that the US was already firing about 1 million shots a day when he took office.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, now adviser to Mr Biden on the COVID-19 response, said in a statement interview about “Face the Nation” On Sunday, the administration hopes to exceed that goal.
“It’s going to be a challenge,” said Fauci. “I think it was a reasonable goal that was set, we always want to do better than the goal you set, but it’s really a floor and not a ceiling.”
In December, Fauci estimated that “it could be sometime in late March, early April that the normal healthy man and woman on the street who have no underlying conditions would likely get it.” Fauci has said he hopes enough people in the US will be vaccinated by the beginning of the summer to reach the nation herd immunity. There is no fixed herd immunity determination for COVID-19, but experts estimate that at least about 70% of the population needs immunity to the virus to achieve this.
In a CBS News poll Earlier this month, 59% of Americans surveyed said they thought the introduction of the vaccine was too slow, while a smaller number were hesitant about getting it. Forty-one percent said they would get the shot as soon as possible, while 37% said they would wait and see how others would do.