Biden discusses coming effort to distribute COVID-19 vaccine

President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday discussed his administration’s upcoming effort to vaccinate Americans against COVID-19.

Video Transcript

JOE BIDEN: But as I long feared and warned, the effort to distribute and administer the vaccine is not progressing as it should. A few weeks ago, the Trump administration suggested that 20 million Americans could be vaccinated by the end of December. With only a few days left in December, we've only vaccinated a few million so far, and the pace of the vaccination program is moving now as it-- if it continues to move as it is now, it's going to take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people, which brings me to the third thing every American should know.

The Biden-Harris administration will spare no effort to make sure people get vaccinated. I've laid out three challenges in our first hundred days. One of them is ensuring that 100 million shots have been administered by the end of the first hundred days. If Congress provides the funding, we'd be able to meet this incredible goal. It would take ramping up five to six times the current pace to 1 million shots a day.

But even with that improvement, even if we boost the speed of vaccinations to 1 million shots a day, it will still take months to have the majority of the United States population vaccinated. I've directed my team to prepare as much more aggressive-- a much more aggressive effort with more federal involvement and leadership to get things back on track. We will find ways to boost the pace of vaccinations.

But as Dr. Fauci and others have stated these past few days, this will take more time than anyone would like and more time than the promises from the Trump administration have suggested. This is going to be the greatest operational challenge we've ever faced as a nation, but we're going to get it done. But it's going to take a vast new effort that's not yet underway.