Washington (AFP)

US President Joe Biden on Friday accused major social network operators of "killing people" by letting false information about vaccines circulate, as the United States tries to revive a vaccination campaign that is slipping.

"They are killing people. The only pandemic we have is affecting people who are not vaccinated. They are killing people," he replied to a question about what his message was to groups such as Facebook , as he was about to leave the White House by helicopter.

"The message reaching us is clear: we are starting to witness a pandemic of the unvaccinated", launched Friday Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), the main federal public health agency, at a press conference.

Over the past seven days, the United States has recorded an average of 27,800 new cases daily - up 64% from the previous week - 2,890 hospitalizations (+ 36%) and 223 deaths (+ 38%) .

"People not vaccinated represent almost all hospitalizations and deaths," noted Jeff Zients, the coordinator of the response to the pandemic at the White House.

This resurgence of the disease is fueled by the Delta variant, which now represents more than 80% of new cases, according to the specialized site cov-spectrum.

The vaccines currently available in the United States, from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, remain very effective in protecting against it, but the vaccination campaign has slowed down considerably in recent weeks in the country.

Joe Biden's goal that 70% of adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine by July 4, National Day, has not been met.

This rate caps 12 days later at 68%.

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- Facebook targeted -

Faced with this bogged down campaign, the White House has clearly toughened its tone this week against the big tech groups, asking them to fight more against false information about vaccines.

Misinformation "costs lives," US chief medical officer Vivek Murthy said on Friday.

"Tech groups have let disinformation pollute our environment," he added, calling on them to act "quickly and consistently against the biggest distributors" of false information.

Biden administration spokeswoman Jen Psaki specifically targeted Facebook on Thursday.

"There are about 12 people who produce 65% of the disinformation hostile to vaccines on social media. All of them remain active on Facebook, while some have been banned from other platforms," ​​she said.

The White House, however, did not immediately give details of these 12 people, or how this score was made.

"Facebook needs to be faster to delete dangerous and rule-breaking messages, messages that break their rules often persist for days. It's too long," said Jen Psaki.

The group of Mark Zuckerberg, in response to these comments dating from Thursday, defended itself by claiming to have already withdrawn "more than 18 million copies of disinformation on the Covid" and "distributed to more than 2 billion people of reliable information on Covid-19 and vaccines. "

"We have formed partnerships with government experts, health authorities and researchers to act aggressively against disinformation about Covid-19 and vaccines," Facebook also assured.

© 2021 AFP