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Biden is also expected to launch a billion-dollar nationwide advertising campaign aimed at convincing the majority of Americans to get vaccinated, according to two people familiar with the decision. The campaign would include a range of awareness initiatives in addition to the paid media, with the aim of convincing the public of the mass vaccination effort.
“We are in a race against time,” a senior Biden transition official told reporters on Thursday. “We need these resources to immunize the vast majority of Americans to help us put Covid behind us and reopen our schools, our businesses and once again be able to reunite with our friends and family.”
Biden has pledged to deliver 100 million vaccines in his first 100 days in office, a lofty goal that will require the incoming administration to dramatically step up the pace of vaccinations after a difficult initial rollout.
Still, the plan depends on convincing a divided and shocked Congress to quickly approve tens of billions of additional dollars for this effort. State and federal officials are also already grappling with a litany of challenges, including great confusion among Americans over who is eligible and where to get vaccines – as well as pockets of vaccine hesitation.
“There is a lack of a national communications plan – a lack of understanding of what the plan is,” said Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers, of the deployment efforts under the administration. Trump.
Some states complained on Friday that while the Trump administration had promised to release all the vaccine to federal reserves to speed up vaccinations, there was actually nothing left.
“It’s a national deception”, tweeted Kate Brown, Democratic Governor of Oregon, who said Operation Warp Speed chief of operations General Gustave Perna directly informed her that supplies were dry despite claims that half of the supplies were being kept for the second injections into the regimes at two doses of Covid.
The disclosure blinded Biden’s transition, which was not discovered until Friday.
“This is another example of an endless example of surprises and disregard for the actual realization of the plans,” said one person close to the transition.
A Trump administration official said the reserve was opened to states this week, making 13 million total doses available. With government supplies now mirroring everything available from manufacturers, states are learning there are limits to the number of people who can get the first shots. “I guess some states thought there would be a first major dose increase,” the official said.
Biden had previously announced a plan to release all second-dose supplies to help his target of 100 million shots.
Biden’s advertising campaign plan will need to be covered at least in part by new congressional funding, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
States say they need a lot more federal advice and resources as they struggle to get gunshot. The Trump administration abruptly changed its vaccine deployment plans earlier this week, urging states to give vaccines to the elderly and those with high-risk health conditions and to punish states that have not run out vaccine allowances. It has bothered some governors, including Arkansas Republican Asa Hutchinson, who warned that a change in vaccine allocation would put rural states at risk.
A source close to Biden said the cancellation of some of the new directions was “on the table.”
But Biden’s team has signaled that it will not reverse all changes made by the Trump administration this week, such as opening vaccine eligibility to broader categories of people, even though stocks remain rare.
“Some of the guidance released by the CDC and ACIP – although very well intentioned in terms of trying to prevent disease and death and doing it fairly – has been very difficult to implement on the ground,” he said. said Celine Gounder, a member of Biden’s Covid. -19 advisory committee and an epidemiologist at New York University. “We basically need to simplify things.”
Some public health leaders have expressed fears that allowing all seniors access to the vaccine now could exacerbate racial disparities already seen in the deployment and leave low-income people and essential workers behind.
But Gounder and others involved said the team was looking for ways other than controlling vaccine priority categories to make sure whiter and wealthier residents don’t make all available appointments.
“Vaccination facilities need to be located in more vulnerable communities, and vaccine suppliers need to come from those communities,” she said. “It’s a way both to create jobs and to build community buy-in in another way.”
Three people familiar with the plan also told POLITICO that Biden’s team plan did not include specific provisions to prevent people from cutting the line and getting shot before it’s officially their turn, noting that any attempt to suppress line break could further slow down a deployment that is already plagued by delays.
“That’s really not our goal right now – our goal is to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible so that we can have a real impact on public health,” Gounder said. “It’s just not reasonable to expect public health officials on the ground to do this kind of monitoring of people and whether they should get the vaccine now or not.”
“Nobody wants to see people skip the lines and the rich get them first,” added a person close to Biden. “But these problems can be solved if you get a substantial supply. Our most important task is to set up the supply chain upstream and downstream of the system to seamlessly move from production to distribution to efficient and fair administration. If you do it right, many of these other issues will be resolved. “
TJ Ducklo, a spokesperson for the transition, said the Trump administration’s pandemic strategy that “prioritizes the well-connected and those at the top, while the hardest hit don’t can’t get the help they need ”will be revised.
Rachel Roubein contributed to this report.
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