UNITED STATES—On July 21, at St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, Ohio, President Joe Biden spoke at the CNN Town Hall with Don Lemon, answering questions from the audience on COVID-19, vaccines for children under 12, the economy, and defunding the police.
Lemon started the Town Hall with a question regarding COVID-19, as Lemon noted the audience had all been vaccinated.
“You said last month that the virus was in retreat. Do you still feel that way?” Lemon asked.
“Look it’s really simple, we have a pandemic for those who haven’t been vaccinated. Well, the virus — look, here’s the — it’s real simple: We have a pandemic for those who haven’t gotten a vaccination. It’s that basic, that simple. Ten thousand people have recently died; 9,950 of them, thereabouts, are people who hadn’t been vaccinated,” Biden stated.
“If you’re vaccinated, you are not going to be hospitalized. You’re not going to be in an ICU unit, and you’re not going to die,… but this is not a pandemic,” Biden continued. “Since I’ve been in office, we’ve inoculated one hundred and sixty million people.”
Lemon repeated the topics and appeared to be leading Biden through questions from the audience. Andrea Gunnery, Community Resource Director for a Charter school, and running for the school board asked about vaccines not being available for children under the age of 12. “What is your message?” Gunnery asked.
Biden’s responded that children under 12 should wear masks, but would not commit to a time that vaccines would be ready for children saying, “he wasn’t going to tell scientists what to do.”
“This[vaccine] is not new, they’ve been working on it for decades,” stated Biden.
A member of the audience asked Biden if he was concerned about inflation, and the economy and he noted the economy is already coming back, and that the price of cars are back to what they were before the pandemic.
Discussions were also held about gun violence, children and Democratic focus on attempting to defund the police was reiterated on Thursday, July 22, on The White House lawn following the arrival of Marine One. Biden responded, “They’re lying.”
“Are there people in the Republican Party who think we’re sucking the blood out of kids?” POTUS asked.
