Dr. Anthony Fauci’s appearance on “Face the Nation” Sunday was not his or Joe Biden’s finest hour. Dr. Fauci had to acknowledge a video clip of an interview a few days earlier, in which he said that the Biden Administration’s aim was to have 100 million Americans vaccinated in 100 days [from Jan. 20]. The interviewer had clarified, “You mean the first shot and the booster as well?” and Fauci had answered in the affirmative. But now, asked by “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan, Fauci said the administration’s aim was to get “100 million shots in people’s arms” in its first 100 days. And when Brennan volunteered that that might likely mean about 67 million people vaccinated with both shots by the 100-day mark, Fauci said, “I haven’t done the math, but yes.”
Fauci’s flip only accentuated what many media have picked up: The rate of vaccination Biden is “aiming for” is quite conservative for the pandemic crisis both here and in other countries. It implies taking more than a year to vaccinate all Americans who want the shots. As demonstrated repeatedly in the Morning Briefing, Biden’s target rate is slower than the pace which already was met by the time Donald Trump left office. Vaccine shots in the United States exceeded 1 million every day from Jan. 19-24, as well as several earlier days. Host Brennan brought this out in a subsequent question, which noted that the Trump Administration had aimed to provide shots to 100 million Americans by April 1, and the Biden White House was aiming for early May. Again, Fauci agreed. His further “explanation” — that administering shots to people in rural areas is more difficult and time-consuming — seemed to be suggesting that the vaccination process was going to slow down, rather than speeding up.
Shamefully for Biden, this appears mainly to serve his purpose in wanting to declare that “The Trump Administration’s vaccine rollout has been a dismal failure”—as he did declare on his second day in the Oval Office—and then if Trump’s original goal is met, to claim he, Biden, fixed it. As shown by his angry reaction to one reporter who asked if he was undershooting, Biden’s team is managing expectations rather than vaccinations.
