White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday contradicted President Biden’s assessment of when every person in the United States would be inoculated against the coronavirus.
“Every American is not going to be eligible by spring,” she said, offering a different view than the one her boss offered less than 24 hours before.
On Monday, Biden predicted after an event rolling out his “Made in America” proposal that anyone who wished to have a COVID-19 vaccine would “be able to do that this spring.”
Ahead of the Biden administration’s plan to host roughly three COVID-19-specific virtual briefings a week, Psaki has repeatedly dodged questions regarding the country’s vaccine stockpile. Those briefings are slated to start Wednesday.
Psaki acknowledged that her routine answer on pandemic-related questions that Biden had only been inaugurated six days ago had an expiration date.
“Our concerns and our focus is not just on the supply. That’s part of the issue. It is also about ensuring that states have the number of vaccinators that they need,” she said.
She added, appearing eager to manage expectations, “This is going to be hard.”
On top of remarks Biden is expected to make on Tuesday afternoon about COVID-19, Psaki confirmed that the White House’s chief virus coordinator, Jeff Zients, would brief governors Tuesday on how the federal government wants to supplement the stockpile.
Psaki also walked back Biden’s Monday remarks about increasing the administration’s aim of giving 1 million COVID-19 shots a day to 1.5 million shots.
“The president didn’t actually say, ’The new goal is,’” she said Tuesday. “The president said, ‘I hope we can do even more than that.'”
