Biden to appeal for vaccinations after US missed July 4 target

President Joe Biden plans to tell the nation in a July 4th speech that the fight against Covid-19 is far from over and encourage all Americans to get vaccinated, according to a White House official.

Biden will celebrate the progress the U.S. has made in its pandemic response, including a 90% drop in cases and deaths since January, and reflect on the 600,000 lives lost to the virus, the official said in a preview of Biden’s remarks at a White House party later Sunday.

The White House invited hundreds of essential workers, military families and administration staff members to view the Independence Day fireworks on the South Lawn as Biden touts a government vaccination drive that has helped get at least one dose to 67% of adults in the U.S.

The U.S. emerged as the best place to be as the world reopens, according to the latest Bloomberg Covid Resilience Ranking, with its fast and expansive vaccine rollout, dominated by the highly effective Messenger RNA shots, stemming what was once the world’s worst outbreak.

The challenge ahead includes growing concern among public health officials about the delta variant of the coronavirus, a more-transmissible mutation that’s spreading across the country, with states from New York to California reporting an increase in positive test rates.

The administration’s struggle to hit its goal of getting 70% of U.S. adults an initial vaccine shot by July 4 has spurred worries that the virus could continue to wreak havoc on significant swaths of the country.

In his remarks, Biden will also comment on the work still be done for the nation to "live up to our founding ideals,” the White House official said.

The party caps a holiday weekend during which Biden and top administration officials fanned out across the country to attend baseball games, parades, barbeques and other group activities in a coordinated push billed as the "America’s Back Together” tour.

The president on Saturday visited a cherry farm in Michigan, while Vice President Kamala Harris stopped in Las Vegas.

Still, the pace of shots in the U.S. has fallen off by about two-thirds since April, with about 1.1 million now administered daily, according to the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker. At that rate, it will take another five months for 75% of the population to be vaccinated.

With the administration’s effort to highlight the holiday as the country’s unofficial reopening, Sunday’s event in many ways signals a return to normal.

Last year, former President Donald Trump delivered an extended Independence Day address in which he vowed defeat of the "radical left” and criticized efforts to remove statues of slave owners. The National Mall was largely empty after Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser urged people to stay away, though the U.S. military conducted a flyover of vintage and modern military aircraft.

A year earlier, Trump planned an all-day event that doubled the length of the fireworks display and featured a speech from the Lincoln Memorial after a military display including armored vehicles on the streets of the capital.

Democrats widely criticized the effort as costly and self-indulgent. Trump and his allies defended the display as a celebration of the nation similar to other countries’ large national holidays.