JOE BIDEN has hailed America's Covid-19 vaccination programme following the administration of the 50 millionth jab since he was sworn in as President.
The milestone was passed on Thursday, mere days after the US hit the awful milestone of half a million coronavirus-related deaths, a figure higher than the number of Americans who died in World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined.
Biden remained upbeat however, as his administration honed in on the self-set target of delivering 100 million shots of the Covid-19 vaccine in his first 100 days in office.
"We're halfway there," he said.
"50 million shots in 37 days. That's weeks ahead of schedule. The more people get vaccinated, the faster we're going to beat this pandemic."
Over 45 million Americans have now been given at least one dose of the vaccine, 20 million of which have received both shots.
Biden went on to predict that by late Spring there will be enough vaccines in the US to administer to anyone who wants one, but warned that vaccine hesitancy still had the potential to undermine the rollout.
"We'll have the vaccine waiting," he said before promising a "massing campaign to educate people" about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines in the hope of increasing demand for them as the country aims to inoculate around 80% of the adult population in order to achieve herd immunity and to bring about an end to the pandemic.
The President added that he hopes the Johnson & Johnson vaccine would be approved as soon as this weekend, proving the US with its very first single-dose Covid-19 vaccine.
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