World News | Biden Touts His Administration's COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout During Address to Congress
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. US President Joe Biden in his first formal address to a joint session of Congress touted the success of his administration's COVID-19 vaccine rollout, as he urged everyone to get vaccinated against the deadly disease that has claimed over 574,000 lives in the country.
Washington, Apr 29 (PTI) US President Joe Biden in his first formal address to a joint session of Congress touted the success of his administration's COVID-19 vaccine rollout, as he urged everyone to get vaccinated against the deadly disease that has claimed over 574,000 lives in the country.
Delivering the speech on Wednesday night, he asked people to turn peril into possibility, crisis into opportunity and setbacks into strength.
"We are working again. Dreaming again. Discovering again. Leading the world again," Biden said.
"We have shown each other and the world. There is no quit in America," he said.
The nation can't let its guard down now, Biden said, after urging people who hadn't gotten a shot against COVID-19 to get one.
"Go get vaccinated, America. They are available," Biden said.
The US is the worst-hit country in the world with more than 574,000 people killed and over 32,228,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
"We're marshalling every federal resource. We're gotten vaccinations to nearly 40,000 pharmacies and over 700 community health centres where the poorest of the poor can be reached," Biden said.
"We're setting up community vaccination sites, developing mobile units to get the hard to reach communities. Today, 90 per cent of Americans now live within five miles of a vaccination site," he said, as he touted the success of his administration's COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
According to the latest estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 54.5 per cent of the US adult population has received at least one dose of the vaccine while 37.8 per cent are considered fully vaccinated.
Biden said progress against the virus must be followed by dramatic investments to help people who “feel left behind and forgotten in an economy that's rapidly changing.”
He said his spending proposals will generate millions of jobs, describing them as “a blue-collar blueprint to build America.”
It is the first time in American history that the two officials standing behind the president -- Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- during such an event are women.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)