WASHINGTON, April 21 (KUNA) - US President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that his administration had achieved its target of giving 200 million coronavirus vaccine shots in less than 100 days.
"The goal unmatched in the world or in prior mass vaccination efforts in American history. When tomorrow's vaccine and vaccination numbers come out it will show that today we did it, today we hit 200 million shots in the 92nd day in office," Biden said in a speech at the White House on the vaccination campaign today.
He described the achievement as an incredible milestone.
"You know at the pace we are moving when I took office it would have taken us more than 220 days almost 7 months, 7.5 months to reach 200 million shots; instead of marking this milestone in April we would not have seen it until early September at the earliest," Biden said in a statement.
He noted that experts say that the rapid vaccination effort had already saved tens of thousands of American lives.
"The first three months of our vaccination program focused on targeting vaccines to specific high risk groups; now our objective is to reach everyone, everyone over the age of 16 in America. Wherever you live, whatever your circumstances if you are 16 or older you are now eligible for a free COVID vaccine shot and we have the vaccine to deliver," he elaborated.
The US leader urged all employers to give employees the time off they need with pay to get vaccinated.
"No working Americans should lose a single dollar from their paycheck because they chose to fulfill their patriotic duty of getting vaccinated," he said. (end) asj.bb