White House calling out critics of door-to-door vaccine push
"A disservice to the country." "Inaccurate disinformation." "Literally killing people." For months, the Biden White House refrained from criticizing Republican officials who played down the importance of corona virus vaccinations or sought to make political hay of the federal government's all-out effort to drive shots into arms. Not any longer.
With the COVID-19 vaccination rate plateauing across the country, the White House is returning fire at those they see as spreading harmful misinformation or fear about the shots. When South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster tried this week to block door-to-door efforts to drive up the vaccination rate in his state, White House press secretary Jen Psaki did not mince words in her reaction.
"The failure to provide accurate public health information, including the efficacy of vaccines and the accessibility of them to people across the country, including South Carolina, is literally killing people, so maybe they should consider that," she said Friday. While 67% of American adults have gotten at least one dose.
officials are increasingly worried about vast geographic disparity in vaccination rates, and the emergence of what some experts warn could be two dramatically different realities for the country in the coming months: High vaccine uptake and lower caseloads in more Democratic-leaning parts of the country, and fresh hot spots and the development of dangerous variants in more GOP-leaning areas.
