Biden urges unvaccinated Americans to get a jab to avoid 'needless toll'

WASHINGTON - US President Joe Biden on Friday urged unvaccinated Americans to get a jab sooner as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose a threat to the country's economic recovery.

"My message today is not one of celebration. It's one to remind us we got a lot of hard work left to be done both to beat the Delta variant and to continue our advance of economic recovery," Biden said in remarks from the White House following the release of a July employment report which showed nearly 1 million jobs were added to the economy.

"America can beat the Delta variant just as we beat the original COVID-19," Biden said. "We can do this, so wear a mask when recommended, get vaccinated today. All of that will save lives and it means we're not going to have the same kind of economic damage we've seen when COVID-19 began."

"Because of our success with the vaccination effort, this new Delta variant wave of COVID-19 will be very different," Biden said.

"Yes, cases are going to go up before they come back down. It's a pandemic of the unvaccinated," he said. "It's taking a needless toll on our country."

The COVID-19 cases are surging across the United States because of the highly-contagious Delta variant while millions of Americans remain unvaccinated.

White House COVID-19 data director Cyrus Shahpar tweeted Friday that "50 percent of Americans (all ages) are now fully vaccinated."