© Stefani Reynolds-Pool/GettyPresident Joe Biden said that the Trump administration's handling of COVID-19 and vaccine distribution was "more dire than we thought" in a recent interview with CBS.
President Joe Biden has blamed the current pace of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout on former President Donald Trump, saying the previous administration's handling of the pandemic was "even more dire than we thought."
In an interview with CBS Evening News that aired ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl, host Norah O'Donnell told Biden that "at the current rate of 1.3 million doses a day, it's going to take almost a year to get" to herd immunity. She noted that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Biden administration's chief medical adviser, has said that 75 percent of Americans need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity from the virus.
A Timeline Of The COVID-19 Pandemic
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"One of the disappointments was, when we came into office, the circumstances relating to how the administration was handling COVID, [it] was even more dire than we thought," Biden said, before clarifying that he's referring to the Trump administration.
"We thought they indicated there was a lot more vaccine available, and it didn't turn out to be the case. So that's why we've ramped up everywhere we can," he continued. "It was one thing if we had enough vaccines, which we didn't, so we're pushing as hard as we can to get more vaccines manufactured."
The president admitted that it would be "very difficult" to reach herd immunity by the end of summer, but said that "it's time for schools to reopen safely."
"You have to have fewer people in the classroom, you have to have ventilation systems that have been reworked, our CDC commissioner is going to be coming out with science-based judgments as early as Wednesday to lay out what the minimum requirements are," he added.
Newsweek reached out to Trump representatives for comment. This story will be updated with any response.
This is a developing story.
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