Officials from the new Biden government prepared the country for continuing difficulties in the days after his inauguration, with the president-elect taking control of a struggling economy and a coronavirus outbreak in less than three days.
Ron Klain, the new White House chief of staff to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., had a dire forecast for the course of the coronavirus outbreak in the first weeks of the new government, predicting that half a million Americans will have died of coronavirus in the end of February. The current figure is almost 400,000.
“The virus will get worse before it gets better,” said Klain in an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “People who contract the virus today will start getting sick next month, will increase the death toll in late February, until March, so it will take a while to reverse that.”
The daily average of virus deaths in the USA has increased dramatically 3,000, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have sounded the alarm over a much more contagious and rapidly spreading variant of the coronavirus that authorities project will become the country’s dominant source of infection in March, potentially fueling another outbreak of cases. and deaths.
Klain, in comments aimed at the states’ disappointment at the lack of a reserve of additional vaccines that the Trump administration promised to release, said his team was “inheriting a great deal of confusion” in terms of vaccine production and distribution.
“But we have a plan to fix this,” said Klain, referring to a federal vaccination campaign that Biden announced on Friday. “We think there are things we can do to speed up the delivery of this vaccine.”
Government officials earlier this week urged states to loosen eligibility criteria and start vaccinating all Americans 65 and older. Some states, including New York, acted quickly to comply, generating a surge of interest – and confusion – as thousands of newly qualified people sought consultations for vaccinations.
But there was no stock of additional doses of vaccine awaiting distribution to these states, it turned out – only the quantities already promised, much to be administered
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Sunday that he was also trying to resolve the confusion about how many doses of vaccine were being maintained by the federal government and where they were going.
“I think there was just one misunderstanding,” said Fauci on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. “When doses were released, an equal amount was maintained to ensure that, if there was a failure in the flow of supply, people who received the first doses clearly obtained the second,” he said.
Once it became clear that vaccine production would be reliable, he added, “the decision was made, instead of just giving enough for the first dose and retaining it for the second dose, that once they had the doses available, they would give because now they would be confident that the next amount they would receive. “
Brian Deese, the new head of the National Economic Council, also emphasized the urgency of approving a $ 1.9 trillion stimulus plan that the new Biden government released last week to aid the recovery effort, pointing to data that suggest an increase unemployment and that more Americans are starving.
“The truth is that we are in a very precarious time,” said Deese in an appearance on “Fox News Sunday”. “We have an acute economic crisis and a human crisis, and we need decisive action.”