Trump blames states amid claims it could take 10 years to vaccinate US at current pace

Operation Warp Speed is way behind schedule as President-elect Joe Biden sets goal of 100 million vaccinations in 100 days

Operation Warp Speed is not going fast enough. 

Vaccinating enough Americans to overcome the pandemic spurred on by the coronavirus will take 10 years if the pace of vaccinations stays the same.

The immunization program led by Vice President Mike Pence is supposed to make sure that 80 per cent of all 330 million Americans get vaccinated by late June. A necessity for success is that more than three million people get vaccinated every single day, NBC News writes. At this time, that is not happening.

Speaking in Wilmington on Tuesday, President-elect Joe Biden implored President Donald Trump to encourage people to wear masks. Mr Trump's supporters are among those most opposed to wearing masks. Mr Biden went on to say that it would take years to vaccinate a majority of Americans at this pace. "As I long feared and warned, the effort to distribute and administer the vaccine is not progressing as it should," Mr Biden said.

So far 2 million shots have been given, out of 11.5 million doses delivered. Mr Trump tweeted on Wednesday morning: "The Federal Government has distributed the vaccines to the states. Now it is up to the states to administer. Get moving!" On Tuesday night, Mr Trump tweeted: "We have not only developed the vaccines, including putting up money to move the process along quickly, but gotten them to the states." Erroneously repeating an old campaign attack, Mr Trump added: "Biden failed with Swine Flu!"

The administration is well behind its goal of vaccinating 20 million people before the new year, a goal which was revised down from 100 million. Mr Biden has set a goal of conducting 100 million vaccinations during his first 100 days in office, trying to overcome the scepticism of the vaccine by getting vaccinated in public, as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence have also done.