WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden will deliver remarks Friday about his plan to administer Covid-19 vaccines to people across the country, as security concerns have postponed a dress rehearsal for his inauguration on Wednesday.
The inaugural rehearsal that was scheduled for Sunday has now been postponed until Monday because of those concerns, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Politico first reported the postponement.
Biden is expected to speak Friday afternoon from Wilmington, Delaware. He’s also scheduled to meet with transition advisers and will attend a finance event for the Presidential Inaugural Committee.
Health experts and government officials at the state and local levels have said that the Trump administration bungled the distribution of the vaccines and never had a strategy. As of Thursday, from the more than 30 million vaccine doses distributed nationwide, but just over 11 million people had received their first doses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Over the last week, Trump administration officials finally began giving Biden’s team access to critical Covid-19 vaccination data. After weeks of requesting to attend Operation Warp Speed vaccine briefings, last week, Trump officials finally allowed Biden’s representatives to attend, according to a person familiar with the plans. As of Thursday, the Biden transition team has not yet obtained access to the Defense Department’s vaccination plans for the military, the source said.
Biden has said that his goal is for 100 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to be administered within the first 100 days of his presidency, which would be the end of April.
Meanwhile, the death toll from the pandemic and case count counts to climb. For several days in a row this week, it exceeded 4,000 deaths. According to NBC News’ Covid-19 data tracker, 388,599 people have died from the disease and there have been more than 23 million cases.
In other transition news:
Biden to speak on Covid vaccinations; security concerns delay inaugural rehearsal The British Journal Editors and Wire Services/ NBC News.
0 comments