President Joe Biden, according to Dr. Scott Gottlieb achieved his goal of vaccinating 100 million Americans early in his first 100 days in office.
“We will probably have 100 million Americans vaccinated by the beginning of April,” said Gottlieb, who was FDA chief during the Trump administration. Biden’s 100th day in office is April 30th.
While there aren’t enough Covid vaccines right now to meet demand, the nation will soon have the exact opposite problem. On Wednesday, Biden announced plans to purchase an additional 100 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine. In addition to the doses of Pfizer and Moderna, it is more than enough to vaccinate any American.
Gottlieb said that he believes “the bigger problem” will be when demand subsides. To fuel demand in the US, he told CNBC’s The News with Shepard Smith that officials need to make the vaccine “more accessible,” and that includes running clinics where people don’t pre-register for a vaccine need time.
Nearly 33 million Americans are now fully vaccinated, which is roughly 13% of all adults in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency released new guidelines for the vaccinated Americans on Monday, but Gottlieb told host Shepard Smith the guidelines were too narrow.
“I think we need to prescribe a way in which people can begin to safely resume their normal lives and give instructions to people to do so and not be so prescriptive,” said Gottlieb.
Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC employee and a member of the boards of directors of Pfizer, genetic testing startup Tempus, health technology company Aetion Inc., and biotech company Illumina. He is also co-chair of the Healthy Sail Panel for Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean.
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