On Tuesday, President Biden announced that he is moving up his “deadline” for states to make all American adults “eligible” to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
“With all states having opened eligibility to the public or at least having announced when they plan to do so, Biden announced that every adult in the country will be eligible to be vaccinated by April 19, instead of his original deadline of May 1,” reported CNN.
“Speaking at the White House after visiting a vaccination center in Alexandria, Virginia, Biden said that 150 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine have been administered within his first 75 days in office, in line with a stated goal of 200 million shots by his 100th day in office,” CNN added.
“We know what we have to do,” Biden said. “We have to ramp up a whole of government approach that rallies the whole country and puts us on a war footing to truly beat this virus. And that’s what we’ve been doing, getting enough vaccine supply, mobilizing more vaccinators, creating more places to get vaccinated, and we’re now administering an average of 3 million shots per day, over 20 million shots a week.”
“The President also said last week his administration would open 12 additional federally-run mass vaccination sites. In the past week, new vaccination sites have been announced in Tennessee, Wisconsin, Maryland, South Carolina, Colorado and Minnesota,” CNN noted.
In January, Biden had promised “federal vaccination centers by the end of his first month in office.” The first two weren’t launched until mid-February.
Biden first announced his original “deadline” of May 1 during his long-awaited press conference on March 16.
“First, tonight, I’m announcing that I will direct all states, tribes, and territories to make all adults, people 18 and over, eligible to be vaccinated no later than May 1,” he said, before immediately clarifying that being “eligible” meant being able to “get in line.”
“And let me be clear. That doesn’t mean everyone’s going to have that shot immediately, but it means you’ll be able to get in line beginning May 1,” Biden added.
Democrats rushed to laud the “success” of the Biden administration, including Rep. Pramila Jayapal who tweeted, “Thanks to the $20 billion for vaccines in the American Rescue Plan, the vaccination timeline is moving up once again.”
Thanks to the $20 billion for vaccines in the American Rescue Plan, the vaccination timeline is moving up once again:https://t.co/grkmRW4E77
— Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) April 6, 2021
Biden’s recognizable celebration of vaccination rates is also based on very little substantive achievement by his administration. As The Daily Wire noted in late March, Biden’s goals are far from ambitious.
“For example, since March, the rolling 7-day average has been above 2 million doses per day, with a recent 7-day average peak of 2.3 million doses per day. In addition, on March 1, almost 84 million doses had already been administered. On March 25, a total of over 133 million doses had been administered since vaccinations began.
This means that 67 million doses must be administered in 36 days for Biden to hit his new ‘ambitious’ goal, which amounts to an average of 1.86 million doses per day. With the last 7-day average of over 2.2 million doses per day, the Biden administration should easily hit this goal — in fact, they could probably scale back current efforts and still hit that goal.”