President Biden launched a "month of action" last week to lure more Americans to get vaccinated before the July 4 holiday, offering incentives like free beer and sports tickets. Intended to make the COVID-19 vaccine more appealing to those who have not received it, Biden's objective is to reach his goal of vaccinating at least 70 percent of adults by Independence Day. Meanwhile, on Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Jill Biden visited a New York City vaccination center, where they posed for pictures and briefly spoke to reporters but took no questions.
In what many perceive as damage control, the visit, which was met by protestors, also included New York Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand (D). The first lady stressed that public health officials across the nation are working on getting adolescents vaccinated, offering vaccines at sites like churches, which are trusted by local communities. Fauci—whose credibility is damaged as many demand an explanation to how U.S. grant funding was used at a virology lab in Wuhan—shared his appreciation with Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church and those running the clinic for spreading the word about coronavirus vaccine distribution, adding:
"We're going to end this outbreak for absolutely certain, and the vehicle to ending it is vaccination."
Noting that faith leaders are key to ending this pandemic, Biden asked a teenager who was about to get vaccinated how old he was. When he responded he was 14, she replied, “You're 14; that's exactly what we want! Twelve and over.”
Along with visiting the vaccination clinic with Dr. Fauci, the First Lady is taking to social media, targeting college students asking them to heed the President's message that he wants as many Americans as possible to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Biden is sharing the news from the White House that doing so is "critical to saving lives and helping our country return to normal." In addition, the Department of Education is inviting colleges and universities across the country to join the president in "efforts to end the pandemic by signing up for the COVID-19 College Vaccine Challenge."
Biden and Fauci's Sunday visit comes just days after the release of thousands of Dr. Fauci's emails. In addition to the emails recently made public by BuzzFeed, after repeated FOIA requests in early 2020, the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) (a group founded by Del Bigtree which advocates for transparency in vaccines) recently obtained additional new emails to and from Fauci. The email release followed a lawsuit filed by the agency. As reported by UncoverDC, the group has received 2,957 pages of Dr. Fauci's sent emails, communicated from early Feb. 2020 through May 2020. Bigtree commented on the current controversy surrounding Fauci:
"We must hold our government health officials accountable when they make false claims. [ICAN] is pleased to provide the public with Fauci's emails reflecting what he was saying privately in early 2020 regarding masks, therapeutics, vaccines, ventilators, and many other COVID-19 topics."
No stranger to censorship, ICAN's Twitter account was blocked for simply stating that it would shortly release to the public the Fauci emails it obtained. Bigtree emphasized that "one can only assume that Twitter is concerned that Fauci's own emails undermine the narrative it has been pushing regarding coronavirus and the coronavirus vaccine."
