US President Joe Biden has said the vaccination program he received from former President Donald Trump was in “much worse shape” than he expected and his transition team had been misled about vaccine supplies.
During a visit to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, the President also criticized Mr Trump, saying the former president had “no plan to vaccinate most of the country.”
“While scientists did their job in discovering vaccines in record time, my predecessor…I’ll be very blunt about it, did not do his job in getting ready for the massive challenge of vaccinating hundreds of millions. He didn’t order enough vaccines. He didn’t mobilize enough people.”
President Biden
According to health officials, demand for the vaccine far outstrips supply and Americans are struggling to get appointments for inoculations. As a result, President Biden intimated that the United States is facing a “national emergency” in the coronavirus pandemic and his administration is working to supply enough COVID-19 vaccine to inoculate 300 million Americans by July.
“We’re in a national emergency. This will be one of the most difficult operational challenges we have ever undertaken as a nation. It’s going to take time. We’re now on track to have enough supply for 300 million Americans by the end of July.”
The US is also on track to exceed President Biden’s goal of administering 100 million vaccine doses in his first 100 days in office, with more than 26 million shots delivered in his first three weeks. The President revealed the US has signed contracts for 100 million doses of the Moderna vaccine and 100 million more from Pfizer to help reach the target.
The Biden administration has deployed active-duty troops to help with mass vaccination sites in several states, laying the groundwork for increasing the rate of vaccinations when more supply is available.
President Biden emphasised that his administration is doing everything possible to increase the vaccine supply and the nation’s capacity to deliver injections into arms. The pace of injections could increase further if a third coronavirus vaccine from drug maker Johnson & Johnson receives approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
Urging Americans to wear masks as a “patriotic duty” to prevent the spread of the virus, the President delivered the grim assessment that the US coronavirus death toll is likely to reach 500,000 next month.
Meanwhile, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has concluded in a study that wearing two masks at once can offer more protection against potential coronavirus transmission and exposure than a single mask.
In a report, CDC researchers said exposure to potentially infectious aerosols decreased by about 95 percent when a cloth mask was worn over a medical procedure mask, a practice they termed “double-masking.”
To provide the same protection, a mask can also be worn by knotting the ear loops of a medical procedure mask and then tucking in and flattening any extra material close to the face. The report said the key is to ensure the masks fit tightly.
“Medical procedure masks are intended to provide source control (eg, maintain the sterility of a surgical field) and to block splashes…The extent to which they reduce exhalation and inhalation of particles in the aerosol size range varies substantially, in part because air can leak around their edges, especially through the side gaps.”
This comes after US top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, called it “common sense” to wear two masks earlier this month.
“This is a physical covering to prevent droplets and virus to get in. If you have a physical covering with one layer, if you put another layer on it, it just makes common sense that it likely would be more effective and that’s why you see people either double masking or doing a version of an N95 [mask].”
Dr Fauci
