(CN) — President Joe Biden visited a North Carolina community canvasing event Thursday, encouraging those gathered to continue their push to inform residents on vaccine efficacy and boost the number of shots in arms there.
“Nationwide, we’re seeing the lowest number of daily cases and deaths since the first day of the pandemic,” Biden said. “And we’ve built equity into the heart of the vaccination program.”
The president briefly visited a vaccination site in Raleigh before making his remarks, meeting with portions of that vaccination team in front of a mobile clinic. He met with health care professionals and support staff alongside North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, speaking briefly with a small group, expressing the importance of those in the healthcare profession.
“You’re incredible, what you do,” Biden said. “It’s the most underrated profession in America, so thank you.”
The rate of vaccinations has steadily decreased as the U.S. enters summer, slowing down from a 2 million per day high two months ago, to about 400,000 per day. Already 14 states have reached their goal of having 70% of adults with one shot.
As of June 21, according to the White House, 175 million Americans have received at least one dose of the vaccine — or about 65% of the national population. Another 56% have been fully vaccinated.
More than 87% of Americans over 65, a group at heightened risk for contracting Covid-19, have received at least one dose of the vaccine and over 70% of Americans over 30 have received their first shots.
Biden expanded on the challenges facing vaccinating some Americans, including Black and Latino Americans — noting both had a skeptical view of vaccinations. He also noted the administration’s push to dedicate a physician to examining vaccine equity.
“There’s a reason why it’s been harder to get African Americans, initially, to get vaccinated,” Biden said. “Because they’re used to being experimented on, Tuskegee Airmen, and others. People have long memories. It’s awful hard as well to get Latinx vaccinated as well. Why? They’re worried they’ll be vaccinated and deported.”
Biden noted 73% of the shots administered at community health centers and more than 58% of those at federally run sites have gone to individuals of color. Across the nation, half of all vaccinations in the last month have also gone to people of color.
“The more we close the racial gap in vaccination rates, the more lives we can save,” Biden said.
The president was introduced Thursday by Ivy Jones, a Raleigh resident and soon-to-be sophomore at Princeton University. As she detailed moving into her freshman dorm, noting her servicemember father and mother, who has a respiratory illness, the pandemic forced her to “make sacrifices to increase the odds” that her loved ones would live.
But with safe and reliable vaccines, it was imperative North Carolinians “do our part to stop the spread of Covid-19.”
“If the pandemic has reinforced anything, it is that ability and health, life, is not assured to anyone, despite what we’d like to believe,” Jones said.
She added: “To receive this vaccine is to honor you, this community and to honor the gift of another day.”
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