Governor Kemp blames Biden for low COVID-19 vaccination rate in Georgia



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  • Governor Brian Kemp called on Biden for not working harder to push the FDA to fully approve COVID-19 vaccines.
  • The governor pointed to the emergency vaccine authorization to explain part of the reluctance.
  • Kemp also criticized the CDC’s new guidelines on mask wear in people who have been vaccinated.

Georgia’s GOP Governor Brian Kemp on Thursday attempted to blame President Joe Biden for the state’s low COVID-19 vaccination rate as the highly infectious Delta variant continues to spread, according to the ‘Associated Press.

While addressing reporters, Kemp said Biden needs to push harder to allow the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to upgrade its emergency use authorization for COVID-19 vaccines to full approval. .

Kemp, who won his first gubernatorial race in 2018, also said asking people to wear masks again sent a “mixed message” and could cause people to skip the shot.

He encouraged Georgians to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and said he would look for other solutions if state hospitals were overwhelmed with patients.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), only 38% of Georgia’s total population are fully vaccinated.

“We know vaccines work,” Kemp said Thursday. “I want to encourage people to get vaccinated if you are comfortable doing so.”

Democratic State Senator Michelle Au, an anesthesiologist, told The Associated Press that the state needs to do more to increase access to the vaccine and promote testing among unvaccinated residents.

“We are not trying hard enough,” Au told the news agency. “We like to blame the unvaccinated.”

Read more: Kyrsten Sinema’s future staff received an email warning: you “don’t work for Elizabeth Warren”

Georgia released more than 4,800 positive COVID-19 tests on Thursday, a high point that was last reached in early February, when the vaccine was not as readily available to the general public.

With the Delta variant spreading throughout Georgia, like the United States as a whole, the number of COVID-19-related hospitalizations in the state has exceeded 1,800.

COVID-19 infection rates remained high in southeast Georgia.

Charlton County Administrator Hampton Raulerson told The Brunswick News interest in vaccines has not been robust.

“There is a lot of mistrust of the vaccine,” he said. “A lot of people thought (COVID-19) was going to go away.”

Kemp said many people are reluctant to take the vaccine because it still hasn’t been fully approved by the FDA.

“I would like to see the Biden administration set up an ‘Operation Warp Speed’ to move away from the emergency use authorization,” he said Thursday, referring to the initiative. Trump-era public-private vaccine development agency that manufactured and distributed COVID-19 vaccines.

Dr Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation at the FDA, told the Washington Post on Friday that the agency was redeploying staff to accelerate efforts to fully approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

“It will take off an extra layer for vaccine hesitants,” Marks said. “If all this just immunizes an additional five to 10 million people in the south, it will save lives. “

Earlier this week, the CDC changed its mask-wearing guidelines, recommending face coverings for those vaccinated indoors in areas with high transmission of the virus.

The agency also called for masks to be worn in schools, which are opposed by Kemp and other Republicans.

Kemp said the CDC’s new guidelines did not inspire confidence.

“When you tell them they can get the shot, then take their mask off, then turn around weeks later and reverse that, who’s going to trust anyone, any politician, Republican, Democrat or other?” he said.

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