President Biden announced his administration will meet its goal of administering 100 million COVID-19 shots in his first 100 days on Friday, the 58th day of his term.
In an address on Thursday, he said the latest statistics showed that 99.2 million vaccinations had been delivered so far.
He credited his use of the wartime Defense Production Act, a deal between pharmaceutical rivals, and the success of pop-up mobile vaccination sites for reaching the target early but urged people not to let down their guard.
“This is a time for optimism, but it’s not a time for relaxation,” he said, warning that scientists say things could get worse as new variants spread.
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He also said 65% of Americans who are 65 years and older have received at least one shot of a vaccine.
“We have gone from 1 million shots a day, that I promised in December, before we were even sworn-in to an average of 2.5 million shots a day, outpacing the rest of the world significantly.”
Earlier, it emerged that the United States was planning to send 4 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to Mexico and Canada in its first export of shots.
Press secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden administration was finalizing plans to send 2.5 million doses to Mexico and 1.5 million to Canada as a “loan.”
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“Our first priority remains vaccinating the U.S. population,” she said before adding that “ensuring our neighbors can contain the virus is a mission-critical step, is mission critical to ending the pandemic.”
