On Thursday evening, March 11, President Joe Biden gave his first address to the country since his Jan. 20 inauguration. The feature news item played by the media is his victorious news that all states should open up vaccinations to every adult American as of May 1st. While welcome news, the way Biden announced it was truly bizarre.
Biden gave an unctuous plea for “the truth, the truth!” Then he proceeded to claim that, “because of all the work we’ve done,” the vaccine victory by May is possible, and what made it all work is that I “purchased hundreds of millions of doses.” In fact, there have been sufficient vaccine doses lined up and in production, back under Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, to vaccinate 114% of all Americans 16 years old and older by no later than this coming May. Nothing has threatened that schedule, and nothing Biden has done has interfered with it. However, Biden’s panicky move to purchase so far 300 million extra doses contributed nothing — except to delay their delivery to where they are needed, and so actually raise the risk of variant strains hitting the U.S.
His state of mind was on display even further with his: “Many of you said it was way over the top” when he vowed 100 million doses in his first 100 days. No one who ever read the simplest summary of the country’s production schedule for vaccines would have said anything but that Biden was “way under the top” — as at least 250 million doses would be available for inoculations before his first 100 days.
