Biden marks 50 million coronavirus vaccines but warns virus fight not over

President Biden on Thursday marked the 50 millionth coronavirus vaccine shot delivered in the United States and said the country was making progress in defeating the pandemic and returning to normal life.

But he also warned Americans not to let their guard down.

Biden said the vaccine count marked major progress toward reaching and surpassing his administration’s goal of getting 100 million shots in the arms of Americans in his first 100 days in office.

“Today, I am here to report we are halfway there. Fifty million shots in just 37 days since I have become president. That is weeks ahead of schedule, even with the setbacks we faced during the recent winter storms,” Biden said in the South Court Auditorium Thursday afternoon.

“We are moving in the right direction, though, despite the mess with inherited from the previous administration, which left us with no real plan to vaccinate all Americans,” Biden said, echoing other administration officials who have characterized the Trump administration’s vaccination plan as insufficient.

Coming next: Biden celebrated the news that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analysis found Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose coronavirus vaccine to be effective, but promised not to put “political pressure” on the FDA to grant emergency use authorization for the vaccine.

“If the FDA approves the use of this new vaccine, we have a plan to roll it out as quickly as Johnson & Johnson can produce it,” Biden said.

An FDA advisory committee will meet tomorrow to vote on recommending the vaccine for authorization.

Vaccine rollout: It’s going faster than 1 million shots a day, which was what most people expected to happen when Biden first announced his 100 million shots goal. Barriers remain, and while supply is expected to increase, there are numerous potential hiccups in the fragile supply chain that could slow the effort.