President Joe Biden downplayed vaccine hesitancy and a slowing shots-in-arms rate as his administration tries encouraging enough people to roll up their sleeves to create herd immunity against COVID-19. But government data runs contrary to his optimistic claim.
“The truth of the matter is, more and more and more people are getting the vaccine. I’ve never believed that there would be a large percentage of Americans who wouldn’t get the vaccine,” Biden told MSNBC in a clip of an interview to air Wednesday night.
Biden’s answer to a question regarding partisan confidence in or a desire to receive one of the three COVID-19 vaccines is at odds with data that suggests fewer people are getting jabbed and polls showing conservatives are less likely to sign up for one or two shots.
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More than 117 million people, or 35.5% of the population, are fully immunized against COVID-19. Public health experts believe between 70% and 85% of the population needs to be inoculated against the virus to prevent the spread of the respiratory illness.
But getting there is proving a problem.
The national vaccination rate has slowed in recent weeks. The seven-day average of doses in arms as of last Thursday was 2.1 million per day — down 26% from the week before, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But a CNN poll published last month found almost half of its respondents who identified as Republican would not sign up for a COVID-19 jab (44%), compared to 28% of independents and 8% of Democrats who would. That could become an issue as more transferable variants become the dominant strains of the virus.
Biden announced last week he would be directing federal resources to states and cities to ramp up their vaccination efforts, including education programs. At the same time, he outlined his target to administer at least one dose to 70% of the population older than 16 by July 4.
In another clip released earlier Wednesday, Biden insisted he was eager “to get a bipartisan deal on as much as we can get a bipartisan deal” concerning his more than $4 trillion infrastructure-plus and social welfare proposals. He is hosting multiple Republicans at the White House this week as negotiations continue over his plans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito. Capito is leading a group of GOP senators with a $568 billion counteroffer.
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“And that means roads, bridges, broadband, all infrastructure,” Biden told MSNBC. “Let’s see if we can get an agreement to kick-start this. And then, fight over what’s left and see if I can get it done without Republicans if need be.”
