Biden renews his push to get shots in arms
WASHINGTON — With the pace of U.S. coronavirus vaccinations relatively flat, President Joe Biden called Tuesday for employers to set up clinics at work and to offer paid time off for workers as part of a renewed push to reach tens of millions of Americans who remain unvaccinated.
“Please get vaccinated now — it works, it’s free, it’s never been easier,” Biden said in brief remarks. “It’s never been more important. Do it now for yourself and the people you care about — for your neighborhood, for your country. It sounds corny, but it’s a patriotic thing to do.”
Just two days after he hosted a big White House Fourth of July celebration and declared “America is coming back together,” Biden is turning his attention to a public health conundrum: Despite his administration’s aggressive push, he hasn’t met his self-imposed goal of having 70 percent of U.S. adults at least partly vaccinated by now.
In his remarks, Biden noted a different metric: By the end of the week, nearly 160 million Americans, not quite half the population, will be fully vaccinated.
The worrisome delta variant spreading quickly around the country remains a concern in areas with lower vaccination rates. Although there isn’t yet good data on how all of the vaccines hold up against delta, several widely used shots, including those made by Pfizer-biontech, are still effective against the delta variant after two doses, research suggests.
But providers were administering just 870,000 doses per day on average as of Tuesday, about a 74 percent decrease from the peak of 3.38 million reported April 13.
And beyond the issues with the vaccination campaign, declines in the average number of new daily cases across the country seems to have leveled off and remain close to the lowest point since testing became widely available. Biden underscored that overall progress in his remarks, but pockets of outbreaks remain. In some parts of Texas, Arkansas and Missouri, for instance, there has been a sharp rise in cases.
Biden used his remarks to outline five areas of concentration for his administration, all avenues it already has pursued: targeted door-to-door outreach; a fresh push to get vaccines to primary care doctors; a boost in efforts to get vaccines to pediatricians and other providers who serve younger people; expanded mobile clinic efforts; and the workplace changes.
“The bottom line is, my administration is doing everything we can to lead a whole-of-government response at the federal, state and local levels to defeat the pandemic,” he said. “We need everyone to do their part.”
It’s unclear what else the administration can do. Public health officials know that the last stretch of any vaccination campaign is the most arduous — a point Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s top medical adviser for the pandemic, made recently.
“The last mile is always the hardest,” Fauci said, adding, “We’re actually on the last quarter-mile.”
Separately Tuesday, Health Secretary Xavier Becerra notified members of Congress that his department plans to reallocate $860 million of funds appropriated to the National Institutes of Health to cover an increase in pandemic-related costs associated with unaccompanied children at the border.
A Biden administration official said the need for pandemic-related precautions, such as testing and quarantining, has added at least $1.7 billion in costs to the border program.