President Joe Biden has planned to announce a new goal of administering 200 million Covid-19 vaccines within his first 100 days of office on Thursday, a White House official told NBC News.
Upon entering office on 20 January, Mr Biden set the goal of administering at least 100 million vaccines within his first 100 days of office. His administration easily hit this goal last Friday after Mr Biden’s 58th day in office.
Mr Biden was set to discuss the new vaccine goal on Thursday during his first official press conference as president.
The United States was administering about 800,000 vaccines per day when Mr Biden took office, which was slower than anticipated based on promises former President Donald Trump made to the public about how swiftly people would receive a jab.
Mr Biden put resources behind ramping up the manufacturing, distribution, and administering of vaccines through purchasing more jabs from Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson – which have all received emergency use authorisation from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for their vaccines – and by assisting states with more vaccination sites and vaccinators.
Now the country is averaging about 2.5 million vaccines per day. One-third of adults in the country have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine and 18 per cent of the US adult population is completely vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The federal government has purchased 200 million single-dose shots from Johnson & Johnson, with half of that order expected by the end of June. Moderna and Pfizer would provide a combined 600 million doses to the federal government.
Between these three deals, there would be enough vaccines to inoculate the entire American public. But how swiftly would depend on manufacturing and administering, as well as increasing public confidence in the jab.
Biden to announce end of US support for military operations in Yemen
Tens of thousands of civilians have died in the nearly six-year conflict between the Houthis, a rebel group that controls much of the countryside, and a Saudi-led coalition backing the internationally recognized government in Aden.
Prior to the announcement, the Biden administration took other steps that could change the dynamics of the conflict, such as temporarily freezing arms sales to the Saudis and considering whether to rescind the Trump administration’s decision to consider the Houthis, who get military aid from Iran, a foreign terrorist group.
The civil war began in 2014, when the Houthi, a Shiite group with a history of conflict with the Sunni government, took control of the capitol Sana’a, demanding lower fuel prices and a new government. In 2015, following failed peace negotiations, the group seized the presidential palace and President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi resigned. Regional powers on opposite sides of the Sunni-Shia divide, including Iran and Saudi, soon intervened, turning the conflict from a civil war into a proxy war.
US officials have argued their involvement was necessary to prevent the coalition of Gulf partners from causing unnecessary civilian deaths, as well as to limit Iran’s regional influence.
Since then, as the New York Times reported in September, US officials across two administrations have worried that selling arms to these nations could constitute war crimes because of their pattern of use on civilians.
