OPINION | Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those held by Sarah Palin.
Joe Biden is no stranger to numerical errors.
Last month, Biden said 350 million Americans had already been vaccinated. That’s about 20 million more people than the entire U.S. population based on the latest census recording 331 million.
Biden struggled as he argued, “This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. So we have to get more people vaccinated.”
Even pausing to check his notes, Biden stunningly said, “Well over – what’s the number again, I’ll remind myself – 350 million Americans have already been vaccinated.”
“They’re doing fine,” Biden said, completely oblivious of his embarrassing gaffe.
As his cognitive decline clearly continues to worsen each day, Biden is now claiming that the U.S. needs to vaccinate 97% or 98% of its population to get back to a normal, post-pandemic life.
This percentage is completely unrealistic and unnecessary, medical experts say.
Biden’s comment is both terrifying and ridiculous because it shows how uninformed he truly is. To put Biden’s mistake in perspective, even the U.S. nationwide vaccination rate for MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) is only 91.9% among adolescents, according to the CDC.
The comment came as he was filmed during a publicity stunt for the Pfizer’s so-called “booster dose” of the COVID 19 vaccine. The vaccine apparently works so well that now some Americans need booster doses.
A reporter asked, “How many Americans need to be vaccinated for us to get back to normal?”
Biden responded, “97%, 98%. I think we’ll get awful close.”
“But I’m not the scientist,” Biden admitted.
“I think one thing is for certain,” Biden continued. “A quarter of the country can’t go unvaccinated and us not continue to have a problem.”
Watch the clip:
REPORTER: "How many Americans need to be vaccinated for us to get back to normal?"
BIDEN: "97%, 98%. I think we'll get awful close. But I'm not the scientist. I think one thing is for certain. A quarter of the country can't go unvaccinated and us not continue to have a problem." pic.twitter.com/oT0zRXxpJo
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 27, 2021
Dr. John Moore of Cornell University responded to Biden’s comment by explaining, “I would be surprised if the right one were as high as 97-98%. I’m not sure where that estimate is coming from, or which advisor/agency is coming up with it.”
“We will never get to 97-98% vaccination in the USA, even if we’re only talking about adults. So wherever the president’s number comes from, it’s purely aspirational,” Moore added.
Dr. Ali Mokdad of the University of Washington said, “The estimates [for the necessary vaccination rate] are about 85%, which means that almost all eligible for the vaccine now need to take it.”
Biden’s own top medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, initially said that a vaccination rate of 60-70% was needed to reach a sufficient level of herd immunity.
In true Fauci fashion, however, he flip-flopped on this number and later claimed he was merely lowballing the number in order to not avoiding overwhelming the American people.
But even then, Fauci’s number for herd immunity has wavered between 70% and 85%. It appears that no medical expert has published any evidence or support for Biden’s comment that 97% or 98% of Americans need to be vaccinated.
More from Daily Caller:
No country in the world has achieved a 97% or higher vaccination rate, and yet some of them have successfully returned to a fairly normal mode of operation, Dr. Monica Gandhi, Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California San Francisco, pointed out. “Every country or region is going to have a different definition of endemicity. Denmark decided at a 74% vaccination rate and low cases (80% for those over 12) when this country dropped all restrictions on September 10 and Norway (who dropped restrictions on September 25) at a 67% full vaccination rate.”
“Yes, there is no evidence that we need that high of a vaccination rate to get back to normal,” Gandhi added. “Therefore, the country has to decide for itself what this number is to accept endemicity in terms of vaccination rates and cases, with the latter also being driven by higher rates of natural immunity in the U.S. than other countries with high access to the vaccines.”
Only three countries currently have full vaccination rates above 80%: Portugal, the United Arab Emirates, and Malta. None are above 84%, but all three have seen drastic drops in COVID-19 deaths compared to pre-vaccine levels, even when cases have increased due to the delta variant.