Biden: There will be vaccines for 300 million in the US at the end of July

Biden announces contracts for 200 million vaccines 0:49

(CNN) -

President Joe Biden announced Thursday that the United States will have enough coronavirus vaccines for 300 million Americans by the end of July.

He stressed that he believes his administration has made significant progress considering that there was no implementation plan under the Trump administration.

"In three weeks, working around the clock with many people behind me and in front of me, we have already purchased a sufficient supply of vaccines for all Americans, and now we are working to bring those vaccines into the arms of millions of people." Biden said during his speech at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland.

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Biden used his NIH appearance to announce that the previously announced schedule for vaccine purchases had been advanced.

Moderna and Pfizer will deliver a total of 200 million doses of coronavirus vaccine by late July, rather than late summer, he said.

The companies will also deliver 100 million doses expected by the end of May, instead of the end of June.

The president, echoing the claims made by other administration officials since the beginning of his term, assured that the Trump administration "did not have a plan" for the distribution of vaccines.

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“While scientists did their work on vaccine discovery in record time, my predecessor - I'll be very frank about it - didn't do his job of preparing for the daunting challenge of vaccinating hundreds of millions of Americans.

Didn't order enough vaccinations.

He did not mobilize enough people to give the injections.

It did not establish federal vaccine centers where eligible people can go and get their shots, ”Biden said.

“When I assumed the presidency three weeks ago, the United States had no plans to vaccinate most of the country.

It was a big mess.

In the final days of the Trump administration, officials announced that they would release doses of the coronavirus vaccine that they had reserved for second doses of the vaccine.

However, shortly after the announcement, it became clear that many of those reserves had already been released last year as production increased.

Thursday's announcement advances the Biden administration's previous schedule for vaccinating the American population.

Late last month, Biden had said the United States was on track to have a sufficient supply of injections to fully vaccinate 300 million Americans by late summer or early fall.

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The president also said Thursday that the country was on track to meet its goal of giving 100 million doses of vaccines to Americans in his first 100 days in office.

Earlier in his visit to the NIH, Biden expressed frustration at the lack of a vaccine delivery plan by the Trump administration and said he was upset that he "didn't have all the data."

"What bothered me was not having all the data available," Biden said.

“So we had the clear impression that there were many more vaccines available to start distribution, that it was a distribution problem.

What happened and continues to happen, but that was not the main problem.

It was enough.

In addition, he said, there were problems related to transporting the vaccines, obtaining paraphernalia associated with the vaccines, having a sufficient number of people to inject the vaccine, and getting the vaccines to places easily accessible to the public.

CNN's Betsy Klein and DJ Judd contributed to this report.

Coronavirus vaccine