White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday that the Biden administration supports “any measures” that local communities want to implement to combat the spread of SARS-CoV-2, which comes as the Biden administration failed to meet their goal of having 70% of the country vaccinated by July 4.
“If the number of cases continues to trend upward, are there any circumstances under which the White House would reimpose some of those restrictions, as cases tick up, or would that be up to the States?” a reporter asked Psaki.
“Well, states are going to have to make evaluations and local communities are going to have to make evaluations about what’s in their interests,” Psaki responded. “And as you know, there are much higher rates of vaccinations in some parts of the country over others and we certainly support their decisions to implement any measures that they think will help their [keep] community safe.”
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Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki says Joe Biden would “certainly support” states reimposing COVID restrictions pic.twitter.com/zFBVpzc6WZ
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 6, 2021
Psaki later added that even though the Biden administration failed to meet its vaccination goals, that the administration does not anticipate “implementing new additional national measures” at the moment.
The remarks from Psaki come after President Joe Biden said over the weekend that the pandemic no longer controlled American’s lives.
“So today, while the virus hasn’t been vanquished, we know this, it no longer controls our lives, it no longer paralyzes our nation and it’s within our power to make sure it never does again,” Biden said on Sunday. “And for that, we can thank the scientists and researchers, the educators, and all the other frontline essential workers, like many of you here today. You became the light to see us through the darkness, I hope you know that you, the American people have been part of one of the most remarkable achievements in American history.”
Later during the press conference, Psaki said that the administration had launched “strike forces” to go into local communities to assist with vaccination efforts.
“So we had set a goal of reaching 70% of adults,” Psaki said as she then shifted the goalposts by claiming that the administration met that goal with “adults 27 and older.”
“We’re continuing to press to reach it and we will in the next couple of weeks for adults over the age of 18,” she continued. “But our work doesn’t stop there and we are going to continue to press to get 12 to 18 year-olds vaccinated, to continue to work with communities where there’s lower vaccination rates. That’s one of the reasons we initiated these strike forces to go into communities and work with them to determine what they need. To take a localized, specific approach that works with elected officials in communities.”