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Last Thursday, President Joe Biden delivered his first public address since inauguration day with an update on the current plans for the COVID vaccine distribution. The speech comes at the one-year mark since the country went into complete lockdown due to the rise of cases of COVID-19.
The speech started by reminiscing on the last year and how everyone has lost something during the pandemic. Biden then pulled a small piece of paper out of his pocket with the total number of covid deaths in the US at the time; 527,726. Biden stated that “it's more deaths than World War 1, World War 2, The Vietnam War, and 9/11 combined.”
Biden’s main point of the address was to ask the governors of all states that starting May 1st, all adults will be eligible to receive a vaccination. Earlier that week, they announced that 100 million of the Johnson and Johnson vaccines have been purchased and distribution already going better than expected, with an average of 2.54 million doses being given a day according to Bloomberg News.
The initial plan was to administer 100 million vaccines in the first 100 days, and the Biden administration will beat that within its first 60.
Biden incentivized Americans to continue being safe by wearing masks and getting the vaccine when it’s available to them by giving the idea of having a safe July fourth weekend with friends and family, saying it will “make this Independence Day truly special” and “mark our Independence from this virus.”
Biden continued speaking about distribution, saying that more locations will be allowed to give the vaccine soon.
He also addressed the increase in racism towards Asian Americans due to the virus and the former president’s offensive nickname for it, having put out a statement the other day calling it the “Chinavirus” again. He said, “It’s wrong. It’s unamerican. And it must stop.”
Biden ended his address by talking about the relief package that he had signed earlier in the day after the 1.9 trillion dollar bill passed the house. He ended by stating “There’s nothing, nothing, from the bottom of my heart I believe that there’s nothing we can't do when we do it together.”
By Sam Sussman
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