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President-elect Joe Biden has grown frustrated with the team in charge of plotting his coronavirus response, amid rising concerns that his administration will fall short of its promise of 100 million vaccinations in the first 100 days, according to people familiar with the conversations.
The tensions have surfaced as Biden's advisers plan a dramatic scale-up of vaccinations starting Jan. 20, when the incoming team inherits a troubled Trump administration vaccine rollout that has fallen well short of its initial targets.
In interviews, multiple senior transition officials defended [Covid coordinator] Zients and stressed the enormity of the challenge, noting that the Trump administration has refused to share key information for weeks.
Transition officials described encountering a litany of challenges and a lack of long-term planning by the Trump administration, putting them in a hole so deep it could take weeks to get the vaccination campaign on track. They conceded that the team is still working to solve some of the most pressing issues.
"They're inheriting a mess," said Andy Slavitt, a former Obama administration acting Medicare and Medicaid chief. "I think they're uncovering how bad it is."
Of course it's a mess. It's Trump's. And the Biden team didn't get key information for weeks because Trump wouldn't accept the results of the election. My god.