Joe Biden said on Thursday he would direct US states to make all adults eligible for the coronavirus vaccine by May 1 and urged Americans in a televised address to stay vigilant against the virus, hours after he signed a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill into law.
In a forceful and sombre speech from the White House on the first anniversary of the pandemic lockdown, Mr Biden said he was working to speed vaccinations to create a greater sense of normalcy in the country by the July 4 Independence Day holiday.
That date is a new goal for the president, who has warned Americans that further pain and death were still to come from the virus that has killed more than 530,000 people in the United States, the most of any country. Coronavirus-related lockdowns and restrictions have cost millions of jobs.
In a recounting of the grim toll the pandemic has taken on the nation, Mr Biden said: “Photos and videos from 2019 feel like they were taken in another era. The last vacation. The last birthday with friends. The last holiday with extended family.
“While it was different for everyone, we all lost something,” he said, noting that the virus was met with “denials for days, then weeks, then months, that led to more deaths, more infections, more stress, more loneliness”.
