WASHINGTON, March 12, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – President Joe Biden on Thursday
offered his Covid-weary nation a tantalizing glimpse of an almost normal July
4th, outlining in a speech how the United States can defeat the coronavirus
if people stay united on prevention measures and get vaccinated.
“This fight is far from over,” Biden said in his first televised primetime
address as president, marking 12 months since the coronavirus outbreak was
declared a pandemic.
Delivering an emotional tribute to the more than 530,000 Americans who have
died from Covid-19 over the last 12 months, Biden said “While it was
different for everyone, we all lost something: a collective suffering, a
collective sacrifice.”
But he raised hope that the country hardest hit by the global pandemic
could overcome the virus if Americans work together and follow health
experts’ guidelines on wearing masks and getting vaccinated.
“Just as we are emerging from a dark winter into a hopeful spring and
summer is not the time to not stick with the rules,” he said.
If Americans stay the course, they may be able to mark their cherished July
4th national holiday in somewhat normal circumstances, he said.
“If we do this together, by July the 4th, there’s a good chance you, your
families and friends will be able to get together in your backyard or in your
neighborhood and have a cookout or a barbecue and celebrate Independence
Day,” he said.
“That will make this Independence Day something truly special where we not
only mark our independence as a nation but we begin to mark our independence
from this virus.”
The United States leads the world in Covid-19 deaths, but it is now surging
ahead of European countries and Canada with vaccine production and
distribution.
Biden said his initial goal of one million vaccinations administered every
day was already being easily surpassed and he planned for the authorities to
be “maintaining, beating our current pace of two million shots a day.”
To reinforce that huge effort, Biden said he was ordering every state in
the country to remove priority group restrictions by May 1, thereby allowing
any adult regardless of age or other conditions to be vaccinated.
The Democrat’s bid to get the country back on its feet received a huge
boost this week when Congress passed his $1.9 trillion economic stimulus
package dubbed the American Rescue Plan.
Biden says this will give poorer families a “fighting chance” and help fire
up the engines of the world’s biggest economy, something the IMF said
Thursday could also help ignite global recovery.
The president said in his speech that the plan “meets the moment” and “if
it fails at any point, I will acknowledge that it failed — but it will not.”
“There is light and better days ahead,” he said.
– AstraZeneca woes –
Earlier Thursday, vaccination efforts elsewhere took a hit when several
countries suspended the use of AstraZeneca’s jab over blood clot fears,
prompting Europe’s medical agency to quickly reassure the public there were
no known health risks linked to it.
A year on, several countries are looking to ramp up vaccine rollouts as a
way forward. But Denmark, Norway and Iceland all suspended use of the
Oxford/AstraZeneca jab over the new concerns about side-effects.
Italy joined them, banning a batch of the vaccine as a precaution, even as
its medicines regulator said there was currently no established link with the
alleged side-effects.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) issued a statement seeking to assuage
fears, and Britain called the jab “safe and effective.”
– EU approves new jab –
European Union countries are eager to speed up vaccine drives after a slow
start left the bloc behind the United States, Israel and Britain — leaders
in the race to immunize.
On Thursday, the EMA approved the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine,
which is stored at warmer temperatures than its competitors and is easier to
distribute.
“Authorities across the European Union will have another option to combat
the pandemic,” EMA chief Emer Cooke said in a statement.
Adding to the optimism, a real-world study in Israel showed the
Pfizer/BioNTech jabs to be 97 percent effective against symptomatic Covid
cases, higher than originally thought.
– ‘War footing’ –
Since first emerging in China at the end of 2019, the coronavirus has
infected more than 118 million people and killed more than 2.6 million
people, with few parts of the globe left untouched.
The WHO officially declared Covid-19 a pandemic on March 11 last year as
infection numbers were beginning to explode across Asia and Europe.
The only defenses to the contagious virus then appeared to be face masks
and stopping people from interacting.
The pandemic has subjected billions to anti-Covid restrictions and left the
global economy in tatters — an outcome unimaginable at the outset of the
crisis.
“We are on a war footing,” Corinne Krencker, the head of a hospital network
in eastern France told AFP on March 11 last year, as patient and death
numbers began to surge.
Today, more than 300 million vaccine doses have been administered in 140
countries, according to an AFP tally.
Now, governments have started to cautiously roll back measures put in place
over what turned out to be a deadly winter in many spots.
Greece hopes to reopen for tourists in mid-May, a government official said
Thursday. France said it would ease travel restrictions from seven countries
including Britain.
And the sports world — after a year of cancelled or mainly spectator-less
matches — also looked to a return to normal thanks to more jabs.
The International Olympic Committee said athletes at the Tokyo Games and
the 2022 Beijing Winter Games would be offered vaccines bought from China.