WASHINGTON (CN) — Over a year since the Covid-19 pandemic first barreled across the globe, a whopping 200 million Americans have been inoculated against the virus. But with most restrictions easing here now as summertime approaches, President Joe Biden told the country Wednesday that it still has a “long way to go.”
“Some experts say our rapid vaccination efforts have already saved tens of thousands of American lives," the president said from the White House. "We’ll never know exactly but we know it saved lives that have otherwise been lost."
Calling on employers to get more creative in the fight for herd immunity via vaccination, Biden suggested that they roll out unique incentives, bonuses or other programs to spur shots. He said paid sick leave for employees to get their vaccine, and potentially to recover from it, should be available. The administration intends to fund that benefit with a tax credit through its Covid-19 recovery plan.
The tax credit will offset the cost for employers with fewer than 500 employees for up to 80 hours and up to $511 per day of paid sick leave from April 1 to September 30, 2021. The IRS and Department of Treasury are already on board, the White House said Wednesday, and have provided tips for business owners online.
“Providing paid time off for vaccinations is an investment in the safety, productivity and health of an employer’s own workforce and their community. No working person in this country should lose a single dollar from their paycheck to take time to get the shot or recover from it. The paid leave tax credit that President Biden signed into the law in the American Rescue Plan ensures that no small businesses or non-profits will lose a single dollar by providing such paid leave to workers receiving a vaccination,” the White House said in a statement ahead of Biden’s remarks.
By April 18, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 50.4% of adults 18 and older, or roughly 130 million Americans, were at least partially vaccinated — meaning they had received at least one shot to fend off the deadly respiratory virus.
That same report indicated that at least 32.5%, or 84 million adults, have been fully vaccinated, meaning they received the complete two-dose Pfizer or Moderna regimen or the single-dose regimen offered by Johnson & Johnson.
That achievement was a milestone for the administration that had inherited from former President Donald Trump a largely patchwork and highly politicized approach to the pandemic plus a “culture of denial” that reportedly reached high up the rungs of the federal bureaucracy.
When Biden was inaugurated on Jan. 20, the U.S. had administered 20 million vaccines, or just under a million shots per day at that point. While widely considered estimable given the novelty of the virus and the speed with which the vaccines were manufactured from start to finish, health experts and economists alike agreed the pace was still grindingly slow since it put herd immunity goals roughly 18 months out.
Since then, the Biden administration has put the U.S. on a path toward having enough supply of the vaccine for every adult over 18 by the end of May.
Now that all states have opened inoculations to individuals 16 and older, the White House has said the U.S. is ready to meet the demand and will have enough supply for every American to get their shot by July.
Looking to the future, the president on Wednesday said he was hopeful but cautious.
“In the weeks ahead as seniors reach full vaccination, the number of lives lost will continue to decrease,” Biden remarked. “As we continue, the time is now to open up a new phase of this historic vaccination effort. To put it simply, if you’ve been waiting for your turn, wait no longer. Now is the time for everyone over 16 years of age to get vaccinated.”
