White House press secretary Jen Psaki again had no answers on Tuesday about how many doses of the coveted coronavirus vaccine the US has in reserve, a day after admitting the Biden administration did not know how many shots there were.
During her daily briefing, Psaki repeatedly danced around requests for hard numbers on the jabs available, at one point pointing to a briefing from President Biden scheduled for later in the day.
“The president will get more updates later this afternoon,” she said, when asked outright how many doses are currently in US stockpile.
“We keep daily updates … of vaccine numbers being distributed to states, which states have received, what they have disseminated, and we have linked all the points together to make sure we understand as best we can where the delays are occurring. are, ”she added, without explaining what those numbers actually are.
Under pressure for a statement about the robbery, Psaki, like Monday, fell back on the excuse that the Biden government is less than a week old.
Well, six days later, the president is also giving an update on the steps we are going to take to provide more vaccine deliveries to states across the country in response to concerns that there is no federal plan, and that they don’t have the coordination, cooperation and information they want, “said Psaki.” In my opinion, that’s a pretty quick response to states’ concerns. “
And later in the briefing insisting on how the White House can repeatedly provide plans to vaccinate 100 million people during the first 100 days of the Biden administration, and have spring vaccines widely available without that data, Psaki stressed that the government “does have a mind.” on the figures – although she kept them to herself again if she had them.
“When I started delivering the briefing, the president will have more to say about our vaccine offering and also the help and cooperation we will do with states later this afternoon,” she said. “And, as I also noted, we have a feeling.”
Psaki quoted Tiberius, the software platform used by the FBI to track vaccine rollouts.
“Every day we assess where the gaps are, where the gaps are, what the delays are,” she said.
State and local leaders, including New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, have asked the federal government to ramp up the distribution of vaccines to keep up with both demand and their injection.
While the FBI was looking for answers, New York City has been forced to delay people’s vaccination appointments and shut down some large-scale administration sites due to a lack of available admissions.