“So we’re aware that there are problems out there. But as the President has said, the issue that we’re going to do is not complain about them, but try to fix them. So we admit they are there. But we will try to make them straightened out.”
But while the distribution pace has picked up considerably in recent weeks, the process has taken on even more urgency as new coronavirus strains spread across the country.
With those additional doses, Biden said there would be enough to fully vaccinate 300 million Americans — nearly the entire US population — by the end of summer or early fall. He described efforts to combat Covid-19 as a “wartime undertaking” last week.
Both the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security, which FEMA is within, are in intensive discussions on how the military can help the agency, including the possibility of sending up to 10,000 troops to vaccination mega-hubs.
Fauci said Monday that mobilizing FEMA and the US military to help with vaccination distribution is part of the strategic plan that will be set into motion, “literally imminently to make sure that we get over these logistic problems that we have right now.”
In the meantime, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert urged Americans to “step to the plate” and adhere to best public health practices while the vaccination effort is underway.
“There is light at the end of the tunnel,” he said, “but it’s going to be up to us.”
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