Monday, July 5th, 2021
Independence Day speech
Biden calls on Americans to vaccinate
The USA has been setting a high pace with vaccinations against Covid-19 since the end of last year. But that has now stalled. US President Biden is now making an urgent appeal to his compatriots.
US President Joe Biden urged Americans to vaccinate on the national holiday in order to achieve “independence” from the coronavirus together. Getting vaccinated is the “most patriotic” thing citizens could do now, Biden said on Sunday evening (local time), Independence Day, in the garden of the White House. “So please: If you haven’t been vaccinated, do it. Do it now – for yourself, for your loved ones, for your community, for your country.”
Thanks to the vaccination campaign, the US is “closer than ever to declaring its independence from the deadly virus,” stressed Biden. The virus has not yet been defeated, and there are also new dangerous variants. “But the best defense against these variants is to get vaccinated,” said Biden. Thanks to the vaccinations, the virus no longer controls people’s lives, “it is no longer paralyzing our country and it is in our power to ensure that it never happens again”.
Biden celebrated the holiday with a big barbecue in the garden of the White House for around 1000 invited guests. These included many soldiers, health workers and their families. Independence Day was also of particular importance this year because Biden wanted to have achieved a new vaccination goal by then. However, despite numerous vaccination incentives and a large supply of vaccines, the target was not achieved. One of the reasons for the slow vaccination rate in the USA is the large number of vaccine skeptics. In addition, some may want to do without a vaccination because they have the impression that the pandemic is already over.
By Sunday, 70 percent of all adults should have received at least one vaccine dose. So far, however, only 67 percent, or 173 million people, got at least the first vaccination, data from the CDC showed. In the spring, the Biden administration had exceeded its vaccination targets several times. The USA, alongside Great Britain and Israel, is a pioneer in vaccination. Recently, Germany overtook the United States in the proportion of first-time vaccines.
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