White House denounces criticism of door-to-door vaccination campaign | News, Sports, Jobs

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FILE – In this file photo from June 24, 2021, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster speaks at a ceremony to sign a bill preventing people from suing businesses for COVID-19 on Thursday, At West Columbia’s Strudel Cafe, SC McMaster is one of several Republican heads of state opposing federal efforts to go door-to-door urging people to get vaccinated against COVID-19. (AP Photo / Jeffrey Collins, file)

WASHINGTON (AP) – “Bad service to the country. “” Misinformation inaccurate. “Literally killing people.”

For months, the White House Biden has refrained from criticizing Republican officials who downplayed the importance of coronavirus vaccinations or sought to make political hay from the total federal effort to push the shots into arms. No longer.

As COVID-19 vaccination rates level off across the country, the White House is fighting back against those it sees as spreading harmful disinformation or fear of gunfire.

When South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster this week attempted to block door-to-door efforts to increase vaccination rates in his state, White House press secretary Jen Psaki did not did not mince words in his reaction.

“Failure to provide accurate public health information, including the effectiveness of vaccines and their accessibility to people across the country, including South Carolina, is literally killing people, so maybe they should they take that into account, ”she said on Friday.

While 67% of American adults have received at least one dose, officials are increasingly concerned about the wide geographic disparity in vaccination rates, and the emergence of what some experts warn could be two radically different realities for the country in the coming months: and a decrease in the number of cases in the more democratic parts of the country, as well as new hot spots and the development of dangerous variants in more GOP-trending areas.

In the early months of administration, the White House largely refused to criticize state and local authorities’ management of their immunization programs, eager to maintain membership and prevent the politicization of the rescue campaign.

The recent change in tone comes after some GOP officials criticized President Joe Biden for calling for a door-to-door campaign to disseminate information about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines in the hopes it would encourage more people to get vaccinated.

“Now we have to go community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, and often door to door – literally knocking on doors – to get help for the remaining people” who need to be vaccinated, Biden said on Tuesday. .

The local component of the vaccination campaign has been operational since April, when vaccine supplies began to exceed demand. It was described and funded by Congress in the $ 1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill passed in March and is carried out largely by local officials and private sector workers and volunteers.

But some GOP members saw a political opening, responding to the roots of the small government and the party’s libertarian wing.

“The Biden administration wants to knock on your door to see if you are vaccinated,” Ohio Representative Jim Jordan tweeted. “What’s next? Knock on your door to see if you have a gun?”

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