Biden announces new goal of 200m vaccinations in 100 days

Danielle Zoellner
·2 min read
Biden (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
Biden (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
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President Joe Biden has announced his administration’s new goal of administering 200 million Covid-19 vaccines within his first 100 days of office.

“I know it’s ambitious, twice our original goal, but no other country in the world has even come close, not even close, to what we’re doing. And I believe we can do it,” Mr Biden said while announcing the new goal during his first press conference on Thursday.

“Help is here and hope is on the way,” he added.

Upon entering office on 20 January, Mr Biden set the goal of administering at least 100 million vaccines within his first 100 days of office. His administration easily hit this goal last Friday after Mr Biden’s 58th day in office.

The United States was administering about 800,000 vaccines per day when Mr Biden took office, which was slower than anticipated based on promises former President Donald Trump made to the public about how swiftly people would receive a jab.

Mr Biden put resources behind ramping up the manufacturing, distribution, and administering of vaccines through purchasing more jabs from Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson – which have all received emergency use authorisation from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for their vaccines – and by assisting states with more vaccination sites and vaccinators.

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Now the country is averaging about 2.5 million vaccines per day. One-third of adults in the country have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine and 18 per cent of the US adult population is completely vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The federal government has purchased 200 million single-dose shots from Johnson & Johnson, with half of that order expected by the end of June. Moderna and Pfizer would provide a combined 600 million doses to the federal government.

Between these three deals, there would be enough vaccines to inoculate the entire American public. But how swiftly would depend on manufacturing and administering, as well as increasing public confidence in the jab.

The Biden administration announced a $10bn investment on Thursday that would further expand access to a Covid-19 vaccine for the hardest-hit and highest-risk communities in the US, as well as help increase confidence in the jab.

The Department of Human and Health Services (HHS) will dedicate $6bn from the American Rescue Plan to provide access to the Covid-19 vaccine to underserved communities. Then an additional $3bn would be used towards initiatives to improve public confidence in the vaccines, according to a fact sheet released by the White House.

This comes as more than 545,000 Americans have died from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University.