July 4 Didn’t Have To Be Like This

The U.S. missed Joe Biden’s goal of vaccinating 70% of adults. Donald Trump’s politicization of the pandemic is a big reason why.

Ashley Maaike

It’s July 4, and it looks like the U.S. has narrowly missed President Joe Biden’s goal of making sure 70% of adults have at least one dose of vaccine by now. But the main problem isn’t availability. It’s public interest.

Many people who could get the vaccine aren’t, in a distinctly political pattern that says a lot about why COVID-19 has been so deadly in the U.S. ― and why it didn’t have to be.

The 20 states that have hit Biden’s threshold are mostly on the coasts, and all voted for Biden in the 2020 election. At the very top are Massachusetts and Vermont, two of the most reliably liberal and Democratic states in the country. Also among the high-vaccination states is California, which is notable given its well-publicized distribution problems earlier this year.

Publish : 2021-07-05 09:31:00

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