Biden postponing Michigan trip due to weather

President Joe Biden is postponing his trip to Michigan on Thursday due to travel concerns over weather, including forecast snow and ice in the Washington area, a White House official confirmed to CNN on Wednesday.

Biden had been scheduled to tour a Pfizer vaccine-manufacturing facility in Portage, Michigan, during the visit. The President’s trip is now expected to take place on Friday, the official said.

The postponement comes as severe winter weather affects millions of Americans across the country, with a storm system heading east where it will affect the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast with heavy snow and crippling ice Wednesday night and Thursday.

Snow is expected to begin in Washington around sunrise Thursday and spread into New York City by late morning. Washington is forecast to receive three to six inches of snow before the precipitation transitions to sleet and freezing rain, and a coating of a tenth of an inch to a quarter of an inch of ice is possible late Thursday and into Thursday night.

The President had been planning to visit with workers who are producing the vaccine during his visit to the facility, which is the same one where some of the first Pfizer vaccines rolled out in December.

On Tuesday, Biden addressed his administration’s vaccine goals during a CNN town hall in Milwaukee, announcing that 600 million doses of vaccine will be available by the end of July.

“What’s going to happen is it’s going to continue to increase as we move along. We will have reached 400 million doses by the end of May and 600 million by the end of July,” he said.

The President also explained during the event that one of the major obstacles for actually injecting the vaccine into people was the lack vaccinators. Biden said he issued an executive order to increase the number of vaccinators.

The announcement on Tuesday went a step further from what Biden had previously said about the goal, as he announced last week that the US will have enough vaccines for 300 million Americans by the end of July.

The President’s postponed trip to Michigan, which follows on his visit to Wisconsin, would have marked his second trip for White House business as he looks to promote his $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package around the country.

This story has been updated with additional details.