President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled a comprehensive plan to combat the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, massively expanding tests to support the reopening of schools, creating more healthcare jobs and investing billions in a national vaccine campaign. Covid-19.
The plan, which Biden is due to discuss in detail on Thursday night at his transition headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, would invest $ 20 billion in a national vaccination program in partnership with states, localities, tribes and territories. The pace of vaccinations is going much slower than US officials expected, and states are blaming the federal government’s lack of funding and inconsistent communication for slow implementation.
“Current vaccination efforts are not enough to vaccinate the vast majority of the United States quickly and equitably,” wrote the Biden administration in a 19-page document explaining the plan. “We must ensure that those on the ground have what they need to put vaccines in people’s arms.”
Here is a quick look at what Biden’s proposal would also do:
- Invests $ 50 billion to expand testing
- Finance 100,000 new jobs for public health workers
- Identify and deal with emerging Covid strains and invest in new treatments
- Protect vulnerable groups, healthcare professionals and increase the supply of gloves, masks and other supplies
- Join international efforts to stop Covid
- Provides $ 170 billion to reopen schools and universities
Biden would also increase testing to support the reopening of schools safely and protect populations at risk, such as the elderly and people with pre-existing illnesses. His administration said the test is a “critical” strategy to control the spread of the virus, but the additional tests are not yet widely available and the United States is not yet using the ones it already has effectively.
The president-elect’s plan invests $ 50 billion in testing, providing funds for rapid testing, investments to expand laboratory capacity and help states implement regular testing protocols.
Notably, the plan includes investing in new treatments for Covid-19. Earlier in the day, a member of Biden’s Covid-19 advisory board, Dr. Celine Gounder, said public health officials have been too focused on treatments like monoclonal antibodies and remdesivir, Gilead Sciences’ antiviral drug. Monoclonal antibodies, in particular, have had a lukewarm response from healthcare professionals, often unused, according to American officials.
“We need to think about other” therapies, Gounder told the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health during a webcast, adding that “monoclonal antibodies may not be the solution here.”
The plan also provides for the creation of a fund to support 100,000 new health jobs, as well as the use of the National Guard to increase the national supply of bottles, gloves and masks for health professionals who are already on the front lines.
The Biden administration plans to invest $ 30 billion in the Disaster Relief Fund to ensure sufficient supplies of protective equipment. It will also provide 100% federal reimbursement for essential emergency supplies for states, local governments and tribes, including sending the National Guard, according to a draft plan. Biden plans to request an additional $ 10 billion to manufacture supplies for the pandemic.
Biden would “restore US leadership globally” and provide support for international health and humanitarian response efforts. It is not clear whether this means that the U.S. will return to the World Health Organization after President Donald Trump withdrew the country from the international agency last year. However, Biden said in the past that he intends to return the US to WHO.
The president-elect’s new plan comes as the coronavirus continues to spread rapidly across the United States and the death toll is rising rapidly. The nation is now registering at least 245,300 new cases of Covid-19 and at least 3,360 virus-related deaths each day, based on an average of seven days calculated by CNBC using data from Johns Hopkins University. The US reported a record 4,327 deaths from coronavirus on Tuesday, the second time in just a week, the daily death toll in the country has exceeded 4,000.
Trump’s response to the pandemic has been criticized, including his way of distributing Pfizers and Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines.
On Thursday, at 9:00 am ET, more than 30.6 million doses of the vaccine were distributed in the United States, but just over 11.1 million injections were administered, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Diseases. The number is a far cry from the federal government’s goal of inoculating 20 million Americans by the end of 2020 and 50 million Americans by the end of this month.
The Trump administration on Tuesday adopted Biden’s plan to release most of the doses he had withheld for the second round of two-dose vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.
In an attempt to speed up the pace of vaccinations, the Trump administration has also changed the way it allocates vaccine doses to states and the CDC has expanded vaccine eligibility for everyone aged 65 and over, as well as for those with comorbid conditions , such as diabetes and heart disease.