[ad_1]
WASHINGTON – President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., racing against a surge in coronavirus cases and the emergence of a new variant that could worsen the crisis, plans a vaccination offensive that calls for significantly expanding access to vaccine while using a wartime law to increase production.
In a speech on Friday in Wilmington, Del., Mr Biden told Americans that “we are left in a very dark winter,” allowing, “the honest truth is this: Things will get worse before they get better.”
“I told you,” he said, “I’ll always be level with you.” But he also tried to offer hope for an end to a pandemic that claimed the lives of nearly 390,000 Americans and unraveled the economic and social fabric of the country.
“Our plan is as clear as it is bold: get more people vaccinated for free, create more places to get vaccinated, mobilize more medical teams to get vaccines in people’s arms, increase the supply and make it get out as soon as possible. possible, ”he said, calling it“ one of the most difficult operational efforts ever undertaken by our country ”.
He pledged to increase the availability of vaccines in pharmacies, build mobile clinics to obtain vaccines in underserved rural and urban communities, and encourage states to expand vaccine eligibility to people 65 and over. more. Mr Biden also pledged to make racial equity a priority in the fight against a virus that has disproportionately infected and killed people of color.
“You have my word,” he said, “we’ll handle the hell of this operation.”
But the President-elect’s expansive vision collides with a sobering reality: With just two federally licensed vaccines, supplies will be scarce over the next few months, frustrating some state and local health officials who hoped that Releasing a federal stockpile of vaccine doses announced this week could alleviate this shortage.
Mr Biden is clearly ready to assert a role for the federal government that President Trump has refused to embrace, using the crisis to rebuild the country’s public health services and Washington’s money to hire a new work force from health and deploy the National Guard. But many of its bold promises will be difficult to fulfill.
Even if Mr. Biden invokes the Korean War-era Defense Production Act, it may take some time to ease vaccine shortages. The law has already been invoked, with an important but limited effect. His promises to build federally backed mass vaccination sites and develop new programs to serve people at high risk, including people with developmental disabilities and those in prison, will only work if there is. vaccines to be administered.
“This does not mean that everyone in this group will be vaccinated immediately, because the supply is not where it needs to be,” conceded Mr. Biden. But as new doses become available, he pledged, “We will reach more people who need it.”
The vaccine distribution plan comes a day after Mr Biden proposed a $ 1.9 trillion bailout to tackle the economic downturn and the Covid-19 crisis, including a ‘national vaccination program’ of $ 20 billion. The president-elect has repeatedly stated that he intends to get “100 million Covid vaccines into the arms of the American people” by his 100th day in office.
Hurry up. With the death toll now reaching nearly 4,000 a day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sounded the alarm on Friday over a rapidly spreading and much more contagious variant of the coronavirus which is expected to become the main source of infection in the United States by March, which could fuel a new wave of cases and deaths.
“I think we are going to see, in six to eight weeks, major transmission in this country as we are seeing in England,” Dr Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and member of Mr Biden’s coronavirus advisory committee. “If we can set up immunization clinics faster and more efficiently, how many lives are we saving?”
In some ways, Mr Biden’s plan echoes that outlined this week by Mr Trump’s Health Secretary Alex M. Azar II, who urged states to vaccinate those 65 and over. The Trump administration has also pledged to employ pharmacies to administer injections and to invoke the Defense Production Act if necessary.
When Mr Azar announced on Tuesday that the federal government was releasing a stockpile of vaccine doses, some state health officials expected to get more in their weekly shipments to help meet growing demand as the pandemic was spiraling out of control.
But now states face a harsh reality. This stock consisted only of vaccines intended for booster injections for people who had already received a first dose. This means that releasing this pool will not extend the vaccinations to a new group of people. Federal officials said second doses will be given priority in weekly shipments so everyone can get a booster.
Governor Kate Brown of Oregon, Democrat, posted on Twitter that she had received “disturbing news” Thursday evening: “States will not receive increased shipments of vaccines from the national stockpile next week because there is no federal reserve of doses.” She added: “I am shocked and dismayed that they set an expectation that they could not live up to, with such dire consequences.”
A senior administration official said on Friday that the government expected the two vaccine-producing companies, Moderna and Pfizer, to deliver eight to 12 million doses of vaccine to the public per week over the next few weeks – expeditions which will then be divided between those who have their first and second plans. The two companies have made deals with the federal government to deliver a total of 200 million doses to the United States – or enough to fully immunize 100 million people – by the end of March.
The European Union is also grappling with shortages, as Pfizer plans to halt production of its vaccine for weeks as it upgrades its manufacturing facility in Puurs, Belgium, to meet its goal of producing two billion doses this year – up from previous target. of 1.3 billion. This decision will reduce deliveries to EU member states as well as other countries.
The plan Mr Biden rolled out on Friday is part of a larger effort to use the current crisis to rebuild the country’s crumbling public health infrastructure – long a goal of Democrats on Capitol Hill. As part of his stimulus package, he also proposed increasing federal funding for community health centers and called for a new “public health jobs program” that would fund 100,000 public health workers to ensure that they ‘they engage in vaccine awareness and contact tracing.
“The details have yet to be worked out, but it really is a critical recognition that state and local health agencies need to be strengthened in a way that they haven’t been in decades,” said Dr Osterholm. .
But Dr Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territory Health Officials, has expressed caution over the idea and urged Mr Biden to consult with members of his group before creating a new one. body of public health workers.
“We would really like to see him bring a few more people with some field experience into his team,” said Dr Plescia. “One of the things about a federal employment body is how do these people interact with state health departments? You really need to think about it. “
Mr Biden’s attempt to improve public health infrastructure is reminiscent of the approach he and President Barack Obama took with the recession-ravaged economy they inherited in 2009, when Mr Biden was the new one. vice-president. Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama’s chief of staff at the time, said then that a serious crisis should never be “wasted” because it could provide “the opportunity to do things you think you cannot do. before ”.
In an interview on Friday, Mr. Emanuel, who went on to serve two terms as mayor of Chicago, praised Mr. Biden for his plans to invest in such clinics – also known as Federally Qualified Health Centers, or FQHC. .
“The FQHC is singularly the best preventative health care for hard-to-reach communities,” said Mr. Emanuel, adding that “what is great about this investment the president-elect is making is that he is throwing away the bases ”of a strong audience. health response to future crises.
Mr. Biden has long been committed to a much more aggressive federal response than Mr. Trump’s leave-it-it-yourself approach.
Also on Friday, Biden’s team announced plans to phase out Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s fast-track vaccination initiative. Dr David A. Kessler, former head of the Food and Drug Administration who advised Mr Biden on the pandemic, will lead the new administration’s efforts to accelerate the development and manufacture of the Covid-19 vaccines.
“OWS is the name of the Trump team for their program,” Jennifer Psaki, spokesperson for Mr. Biden, wrote on Twitter, using the initials of the program. “We are putting in place a new structure, which will have a different name from OWS.”
[ad_2]
Source link