Collins: Insulting vaccines can last pandemic

In an interview for television network “Fox News” Collins said he's not worried about the vaccine supplies. He added that he is the most concerned “about the reluctance still existing in many groups”, which he said would make it more difficult to achieve the immunity of the crowd.

“This could basically make this pandemic last longer than it should“, he said.

Earlier Thursday, President Joe Biden announced that his administration has set a new target of injecting 200 million doses by the end of its first 100 days in office -- double the target that was originally set.

Collins said health officials do not know what percentage of the population infected with COVID-19 is and encouraged Americans who have been affected by the disease to be vaccinated.

“Being infected with COVID-19 does not provide enough immunity to avoid infection for the second time“, he said.

As have other public - health officials, Collins warned it was too early to declare victory over the body's pandemic, citing resurrections in some European countries caused by the strains of the virus.

“As we vaccinate the country we must continue to stick to public health measures to limit the transmission of these highly contagious variants and then in summer, we can start throwing these back.“, he said. “But this time has not come“. /voa/