Joe Biden criticised the Trump administration for the pace of distributing COVID-19 vaccines, saying it is “falling far behind.”
The US president-elect said that at the current pace, “it’s gonna take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people.”
Biden said his administration would increase the speed of vaccinations five to six times to one million shots a day.
He said at that pace it “will still take months to have the majority of Americans vaccinated.” Some 2.1 million Americans have already received their first dose of a vaccine.
Biden, who was elected in November, takes office on January 10 and has said his team will prepare a “much more aggressive effort to get things back on track.”
“I’m going to move heaven and earth to get us going in the right direction,” Biden said.
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than 336,000 Americans and experts have warned that holiday travel and gatherings could influence another spike in infections.
At the moment there are two vaccines authorised for emergency use in the United States – the Pfizer and Moderna coronavirus vaccines. More vaccines are expected to become available next year as results from phase three trials are published.
Biden has set a goal of the country administering 100 million shots of the vaccine within his first 100 days in office.