Vice President Kamala Harris is suggesting President Joe Biden’s administration is “starting from scratch” amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Harris told Axios the Trump administration had “no stockpile” and “no national strategy or plan” for COVID-19 vaccines as the Biden administration took over.
“There was no national strategy or plan for vaccinations, we were leaving it to the states and local leaders to try and figure it out,” Harris said.
She then claimed, “In many ways, we are starting from scratch on something that’s been raging for almost an entire year.”
Watch Harris’s comments below:
Fauci, the chief medical advisor to Biden, was asked for a response to Harris’s comment that the Biden administration is practically “starting from scratch” during Tuesday’s interview on “CNN Newsroom.”
The nation’s top infectious disease expert suggested, “I believe what the vice president is referring to is what is the process of actually getting these doses into people.”
Watch Fauci’s response below:
Fauci flip flops again, now tries defending Harris’ “starting from scratch” talking point on vaccines
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) February 16, 2021
"I believe what the vice president is referring to is what is the process of actually getting these doses into people." pic.twitter.com/uZuCUsIeHr
Harris also said during the Axios interview, “We are in the midst of a hurricane that is still raging, which requires us — each one of us who’s in a position of leadership — to ask constantly, ‘Are we doing enough?'”
“We’ve got to figure out a way — that has to be our standard. Our standard has to be: ‘Everything is possible, but we’re going to have to work like heck to get it done.’ Which means … no patience for delay, no patience for, ‘It can’t be done.’ You know, that’s how I feel about it,” the vice president said.
The U.S. has seen a 41% decline in the average number of new coronavirus cases reported daily, compared to the average two weeks prior, according to The New York Times.
As of Tuesday morning, more than 71.6 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been distributed and over 55.2 million doses administered, according to statistics by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.