Biden Secures Enough Doses For All Americans, Ramping Up His Already Aggressive War on Virus
Excitement Should Be Tempered By The Fact Trump’s Failure To Create Vaccine Distribution System Means There’s A Long Road Ahead to Getting The Shots In Americans’ Arms
Announcement Follows At Least 26 Other Actions By The Biden Administration To Combat Virus In Three Weeks
In response to President Biden securing 200 million more doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, Coronavirus War Room Director Zac Petkanas released the following statement:
“This is excellent news. However, while celebrating this crucial effort to secure enough vaccine doses for all Americans, we must remember that the Biden Administration is still digging us out of the hole left by Donald Trump’s catastrophically failed pandemic response.
“A deal like this should’ve been struck last year by the Trump Administration but wasn’t. They passed on buying hundreds of millions of more doses and didn’t take the steps necessary to create a distribution system that could effectively get shots into people’s arms.
“So as exciting as this announcement is, there remains a long road ahead to getting this crisis under control thanks to the failures of the past administration.”
Headline Roundup: President Biden Secures 200 Million More Doses of Vaccine, Enough for Every American Adult
- Washington Post: Biden Says U.S. Will Have Enough Vaccine For 300 Million People By End Of July
- Business Insider: Biden Just Purchased 200 Million Additional Doses Of Coronavirus Vaccines — And We Now Have Enough Shots To Immunize Most Americans
- NPR: Biden Announces Deal For 200 Million More COVID-19 Vaccines
- CNBC: White House Secures Deals For 200 Million More Covid Vaccine Doses
- CBS: Biden Announces Deal For 200 Million More Covid-19 Doses
- Associated Press: Biden Says Us Is Securing 600 Million Vaccine Doses By July
- Axios: Biden Administration Purchases 200 Million Additional Vaccine Doses
- NBC News: Biden Administration Finalizes Deal For 200 Million Vaccine Doses From Pfizer, Moderna
- The Guardian: US Buys 200M Covid-19 Vaccine Doses As Biden Says Trump ‘Did Not Do His Job’
On a National Vaccine Strategy:
- President Biden secured 200 million more doses of vaccine, increasing the supply by 50 percent.
- President Biden is deploying over 1,000 active duty troops to aid state vaccination efforts.
- The Administration is launching a plan to deliver a million vaccines a week to pharmacies that are in close proximity to the minority communities that have been hit hardest by the pandemic, to address sharp racial disparities.
- President Biden is invoking the Defense Production Act to ensure that Pfizer has access to equipment and supplies to produce more vaccine doses, and to ramp up supplies of surgical gloves and at-home coronavirus test kits.
- The Biden Team has secured the correct equipment to extract an extra dose of vaccine from every Pfizer vial.
- FEMA has provided more than $1.7 billion in assistance to 27 states to bolster the vaccination process.
- President Biden unveiled a national vaccination strategy that includes establishing 100 federally-funded community vaccination centers across the country by the end of February, deploying mobile vaccination clinics for hard-to-reach communities, and building partnerships with Federally Qualified Health Centers.
- Mass vaccination sites are set to open in California, Texas, and New York in coming weeks.
- President Biden is increasing weekly vaccine supply shipments to states, Tribes, and territories.
- President Biden is launching a federal partnership with national and independent pharmacies to expand access to the vaccine.
On Containing the Pandemic:
- President Biden signed an executive order requiring mask-wearing on federal property.
- President Biden created a COVID-19 Response Coordinator position to spearhead pandemic response and prepare for future pandemics.
- President Biden mandated mask-wearing on public transportation, including in airports, and on planes, trains, and buses.
- President Biden signed an order to accelerate the development of treatments for COVID-19 and to expand access to care, including by supporting research and providing targeted surge assistance to critical care and long-term care facilities.
- President Biden signed an order to ensure a “data-driven” response to COVID-19, that calls on leaders of federal agencies to facilitate data sharing, directs the CDC to create a dashboard with county-level data, and calls to advance data and analytics in public health systems.
- President Biden signed a memorandum directing the Secretary of Defense to support governors in the deployment of the National Guard to combat the pandemic, and to make costs fully reimbursable by FEMA.
- President Biden signed an order to secure supplies for pandemic response, including by invoking the Defense Production Act. The order also called on the Secretaries of State, Defense, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and various executive agencies to assess inventories of supplies.
- President Biden established a COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force to mitigate the health disparities revealed and exacerbated by the pandemic.
- President Biden signed an order encouraging the Department of Education to develop guidance for schools about whether and how to reopen safely.
- President Biden directed the Department of Labor to issue revised guidance to employers on workplace safety during the pandemic, and to review OSHA enforcement efforts.
- President Biden established a pandemic testing board, to promote diagnostics, identify barriers to testing access, and propose reforms to expand testing.
- President Biden has restricted entry into the United States by “noncitizens” who are travelling from parts of Europe, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil, and South Africa — places where there is high transmission of COVID-19 and variant strains that are more contagious.
- The Biden Administration has pledged to let scientists lead the response, and reintroduced regular briefings on the pandemic to rebuild the trust of the American people.
- President Biden is considering mailing masks directly to American households.
On Alleviating the Economic Suffering of the American People:
- President Biden extended the pause on federal student loan payments.
- President Biden directed federal agencies to identify actions that can be taken to address the economic crisis, and specifically consider actions that improve coordination of federally-funded programs, including:
- Directing the Department of Agriculture to allow states to increase SNAP benefits, and to increase benefits from a school meals program by 15 percent;
- Asking the Department of Veterans Affairs to pause federal collection on veterans’ overpayments and debts;
- Guaranteeing unemployment insurance for workers who refuse to work due to safety concerns;
- Expanding the delivery of direct stimulus payments, to make sure that as many as eight million eligible households receive the relief that they missed out on in March and December;
- Establishing “Benefit Delivery Teams” to ensure that workers and businesses can access government support;
- Directing the Department of Labor to develop recommendations to ensure that all workers across the federal government earn a $15/hour minimum wage.
- President Biden directed agencies to examine policies that undermined the Affordable Care Act and complicated the process of enrolling in Medicaid, and designated February 15 to May 15 as a “special enrollment period” for Americans to sign up for health care.
On a Rescue Plan:
- The Biden Team released the American Rescue Plan, a multifaceted proposal that includes robust provisions for reigning in the pandemic and helping Americans weather the crisis’ economic impacts, including:
- Boosting direct stimulus payments to 2,000; expanding and extending federal unemployment insurance; providing paid leave to American families; increasing the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit; raising the minimum wage to $15/hr;
- Investing in vaccines and their distribution; establishing community vaccination clinics; investing in testing and sequencing; expanding the public health workforce; investing in the Disaster Relief Fund; shoring up domestic supplies;
- Providing rental assistance to struggling families and helps individuals who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless; extending a federal moratorium on evictions;
- Allocating $170 billion to K-12 schools and institutions of higher education to facilitate the safe reopening of schools and avoid lay-offs; Providing $25 billion to child care providers;
- Extending a 15 percent SNAP benefit increase through September and investing $3 billion in WIC to support hungry families;
- Subsidizing COBRA coverage through September, and increasing and expanding ACA subsidies;
- Funding states and local governments, and supporting businesses and essential workers on the front lines.