Former President Donald Trump is taking credit for the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S.
“I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 (often referred to as the China Virus) Vaccine, that if I wasn’t President, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all,” Trump said in a statement.
He added, “I hope everyone remembers!”
Read his statement below:
https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1369798223171379200
The former president received praise for his handling of “Operation Warp Speed” from National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins.
“The fact that we, in December, had not one but two vaccines that had gone through trials of at least 30,000 participants and had been judged safe and effective by a very rigorous and very public FDA process is just breathtaking,” he said during an interview with Axios last month.
Trump’s statement came after President Joe Biden’s announcement Americans will be the first to receive the vaccine before the U.S. tries to help the rest of the world, as IJR reported.
“We’re going to start off and ensure Americans are taken care of first, but we’re then going to try to help the rest of the world,” Biden told reporters.
The president made his comments after a joint announcement with chief executives of Johnson & Johnson and Merck about their agreement to work together to produce more vaccines.
Biden added, “If we have a surplus, we’re going to share it with the rest of the world.”
Alaska became the first U.S. state to offer the vaccine to any resident age 16 or older.
The House of Representatives passed Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, including additional vaccine distribution funding, as IJR reported.
As of Wednesday, over 127 million doses of the vaccine have been distributed, and more than 95 million have been administered, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.