President-elect Joe Biden speaks in Wilmington, Delaware, on January 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 places to receive injections, but his plan to speed up U.S. vaccines largely maintains the bones of Trump’s administration system.
Before the comments in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden’s office released changes he would make to increase vaccination rates. His promises are vague about deadlines, reinforcing Biden’s earlier warnings that there will be no quick fix.
“We didn’t go into all of that overnight. And we are not going to get out of this overnight either, ”said Biden. “We continue to be in a very dark winter.”
Biden and his aides have increasingly criticized the Trump administration’s vaccine implementation, which has fallen short of inoculation targets so far. But the president-elect’s plan amounts to a review of Trump’s effort, not a rewrite.
“The launch of the vaccine in U.S it has been a terrible failure so far, ”he said. Five changes, he said, will help the United States reach its goal of 100 million doses in the first 100 days.
“You have my word: let’s take care of this operation,” he said.
As president, Biden will encourage states to abandon a complex series of priority groups that have been used to screen vaccination and instead focus on giving vaccines to essential frontline workers and anyone with more. 65, according to an announcement made Friday by his transition office. He plans to create community vaccination centers and mobile clinics and to “push” an effort to make vaccines available in pharmacies.
The implementation of priority groups has been driven by science, but “it has been very rigid and confusing,” said Biden. “There are tens of millions of unused vaccine doses in freezers across the country,” while people who want vaccines cannot get them, he said.
He said he would instruct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to begin creating community vaccination sites on his first day in office, in places like gyms, sports stadiums and community centers. “Mobile clinics moving from community to community” will partner with local health professionals to obtain vaccines in “hard to reach” communities, he said.
Biden’s administration will also work more closely with pharmacies to administer vaccines, although it is unclear how it can improve the partnerships it has already established with the government.
Biden also said he would use the Defense Production Act to boost vaccine manufacturing and the supplies needed to administer vaccines, such as vials and needles. The announcement included some details.
“I have already asked the team and we identified the suppliers who are prepared to work with our teams,” he said.
His fourth change, he said, is a previously announced plan to release more first doses of vaccines and keep less in reserve for second doses. The Trump administration announced it would make this change this week. Biden said his administration would not change the recommended dosing schedules that require people to receive a booster injection three or four weeks after the first dose.
His fifth change, he said, will be more transparency for the vaccine program, including regular updates on the population’s vaccination progress.
On Friday, Biden’s team appointed former Food and Drug Administration commissioner David Kessler as director of science for what he calls the “Covid Response”. They are removing the name “Operation Warp Speed” that President Donald Trump used for the vaccination effort. Kessler will replace Moncef Slaoui, who served as the initiative’s chief scientist, and Kessler will focus on administering the vaccine.
Biden is preparing to be sworn in next week under strong security after a deadly January 6 riot at the United States Capitol and against the backdrop of a violent pandemic that is the biggest crisis in his nascent presidency. The United States set records this week for daily deaths from coronavirus – 3,899 on Thursday alone – while new cases and current hospitalizations are close to record levels.
Biden promised Americans that his government will end the pandemic, while warning that it will not be easy or quick.
The president-elect unveiled his pandemic relief plan the day before, proposing a $ 1.9 trillion package that will face obstacles in Congress. On Friday, he further detailed the vaccination plan.
Biden’s vaccination effort for frontline workers includes teachers and grocery workers, as well as healthcare professionals. He pledged to release the “vast majority” of vaccines, instead of withholding second doses, a change that the Trump administration has already made this week. This runs the risk of not receiving enough doses when people should take the booster dose after three or four weeks.
The Trump administration has sought to smooth the launch of unstable vaccines. Since coronavirus vaccines were introduced 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 photos distributed.
The launch is racing against the clock. The United States has had more than 23 million confirmed cases and regularly records 250,000 new cases per day. About 389,000 Americans died, with the United States on its way to 400,000 deaths before Biden took office.
At the height of the pandemic outbreak in March 2020, the Trump White House predicted that between 100,000 and 200,000 would die.