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White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki walked back President Biden’s comments that the COVID-19 vaccine would be available to any American who wants it by the spring, telling reporters on Tuesday that the vaccine will not be widely available by then.
Biden, on Monday, predicted every American who wanted a vaccine would be able to get one by springtime.
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But Psaki squashed that expectation Tuesday.
"What the president’s goal is, is ensuring that there’s greater availability in the spring," Psaki said. "He will push his team…This is his focus every single day."
She added: "But the fact is, is every American is not going to be eligible this spring."
Psaki went on to say that it is "his hope" that more Americans will have access as quickly as possible."
"But he also said many times, it would take months and months for a broad swath of the population to be vaccinated, and, as always, he is guided, as we all are, by scientists and medical experts," Psaki said.
Meanwhile, Psaki was asked about the vaccine stockpile — a question she did not directly answer.
"The president is giving an update on the steps that we’re going to take to provide more vaccine supply," she said, adding that the administration is learning what delays the states are facing. "We’re rapidly addressing state concerns."
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Psaki said that the administration’s concerns "aren’t just on supply," but also on ensuring that the states have the proper "number of vaccinators" and "vaccine centers."
"These are all pieces of his herculean task our team has undertaken," Psaki said.
Psaki’s comments came after Biden, on Monday, predicted the majority of Americans could be vaccinated by the spring.
"I think it will be this spring. I think we’ll be able to do that this spring. But it’s going to be a logistical challenge that exceeds anything we’ve ever tried in this country," Biden said Monday."But I think we can do that."
And looking forward, he added that "I feel confident by summer we’ll be well on our way towards herd immunity and increasing the access."
Biden, who in the last couple of weeks called the slow vaccine rollout by President Trump’s administration a "dismal failure," optimistically said "I feel good about where we’re going and I think we can get it done."
The president’s responses on Monday stand in contrast to his pessimistic sounding comments on Friday when he indicated that the trajectory of the pandemic couldn’t be changed in the coming months, no matter what Americans do. "If we fail to act, there will be a wave of evictions and foreclosures in the coming months as this pandemic rages on, because there's nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months," the president said.
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More than 420,000 people in the U.S. have died from coronavirus-related illnesses since the pandemic swept the nation nearly a year ago, with the number of cases now topping 25.2 million people in the country.
The president warned, "We’re going to see somewhere between a total of 600,000 to 660,000 deaths before we begin to turn the corner in a major way."
While Biden said he’s "confident we will beat this," he acknowledged that "we’re still going to be dealing with this issue in early fall."
Fox News' Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
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