On Tuesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki again had no answers about how many doses of the coveted coronavirus vaccine the United States has in reserve, a day after admitting that the Biden government did not know how many vaccines were in place. available.
In his daily briefing, Psaki repeatedly danced around requests for hard numbers on the available jabs, at one point going to a President Biden briefing scheduled for the end of the day.
“The president will have more updates in the late afternoon,” she said, when asked point-blank how many doses are currently in US stock.
“We monitor updates daily … about the numbers of vaccines that are distributed to states, what states have received, what they have distributed and we are connecting all points to ensure that we have our best understanding of where the delays are,” she added, without going into details about what those numbers really are.
Pressed for an explanation of the delay, Psaki, as he did on Monday, backed down on the excuse that the Biden government still has less than a week left.
“Well, six days later, the president is also updating the steps we are going to take to provide more vaccine supplies to states across the country in response to their concern that there is no federal plan in place, and that they have not received the coordination, cooperation and information they want, ”said Psaki. “In my opinion, this is a very quick response to the concerns of the states.”
And pressed later in the briefing how the White House could repeatedly announce plans to vaccinate 100 million people during the first 100 days of the Biden government and have vaccines widely available by spring without these data, Psaki insisted that the government “has good sense” “in the figures – although again keeping them to yourself, if you had them.
“As soon as I started broadcasting the briefing, the president will have more to say about our vaccine supply and also the assistance and cooperation we will be doing with the states in the late afternoon,” she said. “And, as I also noted, we have a sense.”
Psaki cited Tiberius, the software platform used by the feds to track the launch of the vaccine.
“We are assessing every day where the holes are, where the gaps are, what the blocks are,” she said.
State and local leaders, including New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, pleaded with the federal government to step up the distribution of vaccines to keep up with demand and its ability to administer the vaccine.
While the feds fumbled for answers, New York City was forced to postpone people’s vaccination appointments and close some large-scale administration centers due to a lack of available photos.