monoclonal antibodies become less effective or not effective at all as the virus has mutated. should we have confidence as the virus continues to evolve that we ll continue to have anti-viral treatments that help us, that reduce the hospitalization rates and keep people from dying once they do get infected? we have a very effective treatment on the market. it s not perfect. no doubt in my mind we have to do everything we can to get another anti-viral as soon as we can, just to have it. there s no guarantees in this business. you and i lived through the anti-virals changing the course of hiv. yes, there s a great anti-viral in paxlovid, but we need to continue to make sure that that remains the case. dr. david kessler, stepping down as the chief science officer for the biden administration s covid response. dr. kessler, thank you so much
doses in the first 100 days. 100 million vaccine doses distributed in the first 100 days of president biden s term and those things saved innumerable lives. but i worry now, when i look at the low level of uptake on those bivalent boosters, they became available in the fall. they re a qualitatively different kind of booster. they protect us from the new variants that have developed since the initial round of vaccines came out. i worry that we re essentially leaving 85% of the population vulnerable to new variants because people don t want to get the new boosters. our job, and i saw our job, my job is to make sure that anyone who wanted access to a vaccine or an anti-viral that worked had that access. that it was easy to get. that was our job.
the low level of uptake on those bivalent boosters, they became available in the fall. they re a qualitatively different kind of booster. they protect us from the new variants that have developed since the initial round of vaccines came out. i worry that we re essentially leaving 85% of the population vulnerable to new variants because people don t want to get the new boosters. our job, and i saw our job, my job is to make sure that anyone who wanted access to a vaccine or an anti-viral that worked had that access. that it was easy to get. that was our job. we put it out there. we urged people to get it. as you said, 80% of this country, 225 million people had their primary vaccine. look, no doubt there s cases are still northeast, middle atlantic now is going to roll through the