The president ordered the flags to be flown at half-mast for the next five days.
Biden, shortly after taking office, predicted that the country would reach half a million deaths by the end of February, while warning that his government would be unable to dramatically increase the rate of vaccinations. The half million mark, in addition to its symbolism, underscores how quickly Biden’s team took on the health crisis as tensions with states over vaccine distribution, school reopening and basic public health measures increase, as masking mandates.
“It is really a terrible situation that we have been through, and that we are still going through,” said Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical advisor, during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “And that is why we continue to insist on continuing with public health measures, because we do not want this to be much worse than it already is.”
The spread of the virus slowed after a dramatic spike during the holidays and the new year, with new daily cases dropping to around 64,000 a day, compared to the 300,000 new cases peak in January. Still, the country’s 28.2 million cases and death toll far outnumber the rest of the world.
Since Biden took office, vaccine allocations to states have increased by about 50%, according to the Biden government. More than 64.2 million doses were administered as of Monday, compared with about 16 million when Biden entered the White House.
The government recently struck a deal to buy 200 million additional doses and the president pledged to have enough vaccines to vaccinate all American adults by the end of July. Additional vaccines are likely to be available as more manufacturers bring new vaccines to the market. Johnson & Johnson is expected to receive FDA emergency use authorization for its unique vaccine this week.
Officials in recent days also said they would invest additional funds to increase surveillance to detect the spread of emerging variants across the country, as well as increase testing capacity, including for schools, as part of the government’s effort to reopen face-to-face learning. for students from kindergarten through eighth grade.
Although the Biden administration took a more practical approach in recommending masking and social detachment, compared to the Trump administration, officials have stopped recommending against relaxing state restrictions on dinners or meetings and some experts say more guidance on mitigation measures may be necessary – especially as more contagious variants continue to emerge across the country.
Several former Biden advisers for his transition pandemic have asked the president to impose mask mandates and widely recommend the use of N95 respirators to protect against variants. The Biden government discussed a proposal that was launched under former President Donald Trump to send a mask to every American, although it is unclear whether or when that plan will materialize.
Some experts, including Fauci, said that Americans may still need to use facial coverage until 2022, depending on how many people are vaccinated and whether the level of spread in the community drops considerably.
“When it decreases and the overwhelming majority of people in the population are vaccinated, I would feel comfortable saying, we need to remove the masks, we don’t need to wear masks,” said Fauci in a CNN interview.
Biden, during a town hall in Wisconsin last week, predicted that a return to normality could happen by Christmas, although he expressed caution about the variables that could hinder this schedule.
“I think there will be significantly less people having to be socially distant, wearing masks, etc.,” said Biden.
He added: “But we don’t know. So I don’t want to promise anything too much here.”