Story at a glance
- President Biden spoke on CBS News and discussed the challenges of inheriting former President Trump’s COVID-19 response.
- Biden and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell are planning to use NFL stadiums as vaccine centers.
The U.S.’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic under former President Trump was “even more dire than we thought,” President Biden told CBS News on Sunday night.
While discussing the mass closure of schools for nearly an entire year and the depleting volume of women in the workforce due to the pandemic — two situations Biden calls a national emergency — he also noted that his staff has been surprised by the disarray of the pandemic response by the Trump administration.
One factor that surprised the incoming Biden administration was the COVID-19 vaccine supply.
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“We thought they had indicated there was a lot more vaccine available,” Biden said. “And didn’t turn out to be the case. So that’s why we’ve ramped up every way we can.”
One of the forthcoming initiatives the Biden administration plans on establishing is converting all 32 NFL stadiums into vaccination centers with the help of league Commissioner Roger Goodell.
Despite the apparent progress, including more pharmaceutical companies like Johnson & Johnson submitting their COVID-19 vaccine candidates for emergency use authorization, Biden noted that a mass rollout will be daunting.
“The idea that this can be done and we can get to herd immunity much before the end of next — this summer, is very difficult.”
Logistical challenges surrounding the vaccine rollout are also compounded by the new mutations spreading over the world that have been documented in the U.S.
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