Biden's team can NOT find 20M doses of COVID vaccine sent out to states and 'underestimated' difficulty of their 100M in 100 days promise - as hospitalizations fall below 100K for the first time in 60 DAYS
After just one week in the White House, the Biden administration is already buckling under the pressure from the coronavirus pandemic as officials are still yet to locate 20million COVID-19 vaccine doses distributed to the states last month.
A Politico report on Saturday painted a picture of what officials have described as a messy transition for the Biden team that has been confronted with a worse-than-expected situation on nearly all fronts.
Prior to taking office, Biden had promised to tackle the pandemic with an effective COVID-19 response plan and later announced a rather ambitious goal to inoculate 100million Americans in his first 100 days.
But the president and his team have since found themselves floundering and grappling to keep the virus under control while simultaneously dealing with a vaccine shortage.
The news came as the number of people hospitalized in the US with the virus fell below 100,000 for the first time in almost two months.
The Biden administration is already buckling under the pressure to defeat the coronavirus pandemic and create an effective vaccination plan, sources revealed
The White House is reportedly still trying to locate the 20million vaccine doses distributed to the states during the roll out last month
Biden's team is still trying track down the 20million doses that were first distributed by the Trump administration early December that are now unaccounted for.
'They are planning. They are competent. It's just the weight of everything when you sit down in that chair. It's heavy,' a source with knowledge of the situation told Politico.
'One of the virtues of a well-run transition is that by the time you take the reins, you have developed some rapport and trust with the career people you're working with, the person said, adding that the 'courtship has been unnaturally short,'
Adding to the health crisis is the emergence of three COVID-19 variants that have now sparked fears they could potentially derail vaccination efforts in the country and wipe out months of progress.
About 97,561 people are hospitalized as of Saturday marking, the first time that number fell below 100,000 since December 1
It comes even as the pandemic had begun showing signs of abating after a post-holiday surge that saw a record number of cases, deaths, and hospitalizations across the country.
On Saturday, the total number of confirmed cases surpassed 26million after 146,657 new infections were reported across the country, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
Deaths fell slightly from the previous day to 2,972, bringing the nation death toll to 436,799.
While the cases and deaths remain high, hospitalizations continue to dip with Saturday marking the first time that number fell below 100,000 since December 1.
Weekly data also showed infections have decreased by 14 per cent and hospitalizations are down 12 per cent.
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