WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The first known case in the U.S. of a highly infectious coronavirus variant was detected in Colorado on Tuesday, and President-elect Joe Biden said it could take years for most Americans to be vaccinated. the virus at current distribution rates.
Biden’s prediction of a macabre winter appeared aimed at lowering public expectations that the pandemic would end shortly after taking office on January 20, while also sending a message to Congress that his administration would like to significantly increase the spending to accelerate vaccine distribution, expand testing, and provide funding to states to help reopen schools.
Biden, a Democrat, said about two million people have been vaccinated, well below the 20 million outgoing Republican President Donald Trump had promised by the end of the year. Biden defeated Trump in a November election.
“As I have long feared and warned, the effort to distribute and administer the vaccine is not progressing as it should,” Biden said in Wilmington, Delaware. At the current rate, “it will take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people.”
Shortly after his statements, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis announced on Twitter that his condition had uncovered a case of a highly infectious B.1.1.7 variant of coronavirus first detected in the UK.
Today we discovered the first Colorado case of variant B.1.1.7 of COVID-19, the same variant discovered in the UK.
The health and safety of Coloradans is our top priority and we will monitor this case, as well as all COVID-19 indicators, very closely. pic.twitter.com/fjyq7QhzBi
– Governor Jared Polis (@GovofCO) December 29, 2020
Biden’s goal of making sure 100 million shots are delivered at the end of his centennial day in office would mean “increasing the current rate from five to six times to one million shots a day,” Biden said. , who noted that it would require Congress to approve additional funding.
“Even with this improvement, even if we increase the speed of vaccines to a million shots a day, it will still take months for most of the U.S. population to get vaccinated,” he said. He predicted that the situation may not improve until “well into March.”
Biden also said he plans to invoke the Defense Production Act, which gives the president the power to expand industrial production of key materials or products for national security or other reasons, to “accelerate the manufacture of materials needed for the vaccine. ”.
Trump himself has invoked the law during the pandemic.
To reopen schools safely, Biden said Congress will need to provide funding for things like extra transportation so students can maintain social distancing and improved ventilation in school buildings.
Congress should also help make COVID-19 testing easier and help pay for protective equipment for health care workers, Biden added.
Harris gets the shot
Earlier in the day, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris received a live COVID-19 vaccine on television to try to increase confidence in inoculation, despite warning that it will be months before it is available to everyone.
Harris, who is black and Asian American, received the Modern COVID-19 vaccine from a nurse wearing a mask and visor at a medical center in southeast Washington, mostly black.
The Biden team has stressed the importance of encouraging the distribution and inoculation of vaccines in non-target groups especially affected by coronavirus.
Biden has promised to make the top priority in the fight against coronavirus, which has infected more than 19 million people in the United States and killed more than 334,000. Last week he received the first injected dose of the vaccine live on television. Two doses are needed for complete protection.
Trump, who had COVID-19 in October, has often downplayed the severity of the pandemic and oversaw a response that many health experts say was disorganized and chivalrous and sometimes ignored the science behind the pandemic. disease transmission.
Biden repeated his call for people to wear masks and listen to the advice of medical experts to prevent the spread of the infection.
Dr. Atul Gawande, a member of Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, told CBS News that the transition team did not yet have all the information needed to understand the bottlenecks that make vaccine distribution difficult.
He said the Trump administration may have set unrealistic expectations that anyone who wanted to get vaccinated could do so by the end of June 2021.
On Tuesday, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suspended voting on Trump’s call to increase COVID-19 relief checks for Americans to $ 2,000, in a rare challenge to his comrade republican. Biden said he favors the $ 600 increase already approved.
(Report by Trevor Hunnicutt, Susan Heavey, Lisa Lambert and David Brunnstrom; Written by David Brunnstrom and Lawrence Hurley; Edited by Noeleen Walder, Jonathan Oatis and Howard Goller)