Biden plans accelerated release of COVID-19 vaccine

President-elect Joe Biden wants to release more available doses of coronavirus vaccines when he takes office, a spokesman said on Friday, as the United States capped the first week of the new year with grim pandemic numbers.

**EDITORS NOTE: This version updates with the CDC refuting CNBC reports of the emergence of a new variant in the U.S.** BIDEN: “Vaccines give us hope, but the rollout has been a travesty” President-elect Joe Biden wants to release more available doses of coronavirus vaccines when he takes office, according to a spokesman, as the United States capped the first week of the new year with grim pandemic numbers.

BIDEN: “We've had 4000 deaths, 4000 deaths yesterday, and things continue to rise, to escalate.

That's my number one concern, to get the virus under control.

// I'm committed.

To get 100 million shots in people's arms in the first 100 days.” The U.S. vaccine rollout has begun slowly as hospitals have not been able to administer the shots as quickly as they received them.

The monumental effort has fallen far short of the goal of getting 20 million people vaccinated that the Trump Administration had vowed to reach by the end of 2020.

J Ducklo, a spokesman for Biden's transition, told Reuters QUOTE: "The President-elect believes we must accelerate distribution of the vaccine while continuing to ensure the Americans who need it most get it as soon as possible." The announcement marked a departure from the Trump administration’s strategy of holding back a supply to ensure required second doses of the vaccines are available.

Manufacturing would have to be consistent enough to supply those second doses on schedule - three or four weeks after the first.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of Thursday, roughly 6 million people across the United States had received a first injection of the vaccines - less than one-third of more than 21 million doses shipped to date.

The pandemic showed no sign of abating this week, claiming the lives of more than 4,000 people across the country for the second consecutive day on Thursday.

This, as the White House coronavirus task force said there could be a new variant of the virus that evolved in the United States and is driving spread, according to reports by CNBC.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention later refuted that theory in a statement to CNBC.