FTA: "President Biden on Thursday stressed the importance of wearing masks until at least 2022 to save lives — despite declaring the US will have enough supply of vaccines by the summer to inoculate 300 million Americans. The president told reporters during a visit to the National Institutes of Health complex that he would not take his mask off even though he was standing more than 10 feet away from Dr. Anthony Fauci and NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins. “You know that wearing this mask through the next year here can save lives — a significant number of lives,” Biden said. “And so I apologize if you don’t hear me as clearly as you, maybe you should.” Biden warned that the country is still “in the teeth of this pandemic” with new, highly contagious variants spreading. “January of 2021 was the deadliest month we’ve had. We lost over 100,000 — 100,000 of our fellow citizens. We’re on track to cross 500,000 dead Americans this next month,” he said. ...."