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President-elect Joe Biden speaks in Wilmington, Del., Jan. 14.
Photographer: Alex Wong / Getty Images
Photographer: Alex Wong / Getty Images
President-elect Joe Biden has proposed revising the eligibility rules for coronavirus vaccines and opening more sites to receive vaccines, but his plan to revive U.S. inoculations largely retains the bones of the system. Trump administration.
Ahead of the remarks in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden’s office released changes he would make to increase vaccination rates. His promises are vague about the timeline, reinforcing Biden’s previous warnings that there will be no quick fixes.
“We didn’t get into all of this overnight. And we’re not going to get out of it overnight either, ”Biden said. “We are staying in a very dark winter.”
Biden and colleagues have increasingly criticized the Trump administration’s rollout of the vaccine, which has failed to meet vaccination targets so far. But the president-elect’s plan amounts to a review of Trump’s effort, not a rewrite.
“The deployment of the vaccine in the United States has been a dismal failure so far, ”he said. Five changes, he said, will help the United States meet its goal of 100 million doses in its first 100 days.
“You have my word: we will handle the hell of this operation,” he said.
As president, Biden will encourage states to abandon a complex series of priority groups that have been used to sort immunization and instead focus on injecting vaccines to essential frontline workers and anyone over the age of 18. 65, according to an announcement made Friday by its transition office. It plans to set up community vaccination centers and mobile clinics and to “relaunch” an effort to make vaccines available in pharmacies.
The implementation of the Priority Groups was driven by science but “was too rigid and confusing,” Biden said. “There are tens of millions of unused vaccine doses in freezers across the country” when people who want vaccinations cannot get them, he said.
He said he would instruct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to start setting up community vaccination sites from its first day on duty, in places like gyms, sports stadiums and community centers. “Mobile clinics moving from community to community” will partner with local health professionals to immunize “hard-to-reach” communities, he said.
Biden’s administration will also work more closely with pharmacies to administer vaccines, though it’s unclear how he would improve on partnerships already established with the government.
Biden also said he would use the Defense Production Act to boost vaccine manufacturing and the supplies needed to deliver them, like vials and needles. The announcement included a few details.
“I’ve asked the team before and we’ve identified vendors who are willing to work with our teams,” he says.
His fourth change, he said, is a previously announced plan to release more first doses of vaccine and keep less in reserve for second doses. The Trump administration has announced that it will make the change itself this week. Biden said its administration would not alter recommended dosing schedules that require people to be boosted three or four weeks after their first dose.
His fifth change, he said, will be greater transparency for the immunization program, including regular updates on the progress of immunizing the population.
Biden’s team on Friday appointed former Food and Drug Administration commissioner David Kessler as the scientific director of what it calls “Covid Response”. They are removing the name “Operation Warp Speed” used by President Donald Trump for the vaccination effort. Kessler will replace Moncef Slaoui, who was the initiative’s chief scientist, and Kessler will focus on administering the vaccine.
Biden is preparing to be sworn in next week under high security following a deadly Jan.6 riot on the U.S. Capitol and amid a raging pandemic that is the biggest crisis of his fledgling presidency. The United States set records this week for daily coronavirus deaths – there were 3,899 as of Thursday alone – while new cases and current hospitalizations are near record highs.
Biden has promised Americans his administration will quell the pandemic, while warning that it won’t be easy or quick.
The president-elect unveiled his pandemic contingency plan a day earlier, proposing a $ 1.9 trillion package that will face hurdles in Congress. On Friday, he detailed the vaccination plan.
Biden’s vaccination campaign for frontline workers includes teachers and grocery store workers, as well as healthcare workers. He pledged to release the “vast majority” of vaccines rather than withholding second doses, a change the Trump administration has already made this week. It may not get enough doses when people need to have their booster shot after three or four weeks.
The Trump administration has sought to iron out a difficult vaccine rollout. Since the introduction of coronavirus vaccines in the United States in mid-December, 11.9 million doses have been administered, according to Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker. This represents only 39% of the pictures distributed.
The deployment takes place against the clock. The United States has recorded more than 23 million confirmed cases and regularly registers 250,000 new cases every day. About 389,000 Americans have died, with the United States on the verge of 400,000 deaths before Biden’s inauguration.
Deep in the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020, Trump’s White House predicted that between 100,000 and 200,000 would die.
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