JOE BIDEN has pledged that nine in 10 adults in the US will have had access to a Covid-19 vaccine by April 19.
The President has announced a major expansion to America' vaccination programme, and says that within three weeks, almost the entire adult population could be vaccinated if they choose to accept one.
Talking from the White House after a briefing from his coronavirus team, Biden promised that 90% of US residents would be living within five miles of a vaccination site within three weeks.
"We’re going to send more aid to states to expand the opening of more community vaccination sites, more vaccines, more sites, more vaccinators, all designed to speed our critical work," he said.
He also warned: "We still are in a war with this deadly virus, and we're bolstering our defense, but this war is far from won."
Biden said the country's vaccination figures give him reason to be optimistic.
75% of Americans over 65 have been inoculated within Biden's first 10 weeks in office, his initial target of 100 million shots in his first 100 days has been raised to 200 million.
But he said the country was in danger of giving back "hard fought gains" if it let up on preventative measures such as mask wearing and social distancing, saying that following such rules was every American's "patriotic duty".
"I'm reiterating my call for every governor, mayor and local leader to maintain and reinstate the mask mandate," he said.
"Please, this is not politics. A failure to take this virus seriously is what got us into this mess in the first place," Biden said.
"We’re in a life and death race with a virus that is spreading quickly, with cases rising again, new variants are spreading, and sadly some of the reckless behaviour we've seen on television over the past few weeks means that more new cases are to come in the weeks ahead," he said.
"These people are letting up on precautions, which is a very bad thing. Cases have fallen two thirds since I took office … now cases are going back up. In some states deaths are as well. We’re giving back our hard fought, hard won gains."
