WASHINGTON: Joe Biden’s administration unveiled a detailed Covid-19 roadmap on Thursday to boost vaccinations and testing while centering scientific expertise, after the new US president warned during his inaugural speech the pandemic was entering its "deadliest period."
Experts have said that a national strategy was sorely missing under his predecessor Donald Trump -- and on Thursday Biden’s communications director Kate Bedingfield said the outgoing administration had left little in the way of a vaccination distribution programme.
There was "not a lot of detail," she told CNN -- but she added that Biden would sign executive orders that same day to invoke emergency legislation to increase industrial production and "just to make sure that we have the material that we need to get these vaccinations into arms around the country."
The Biden administration would be "laser-focused" on that going forward, she added, saying it seeks to increase supply, boost distribution and secure the funding to make it all happen. The US is the world’s hardest-hit country with more than 405,000 deaths, and government models suggest the B.1.1.7 variant imported from Britain could supercharge the outbreak’s trajectory in the coming months.
Biden’s presidency will initially be shaped by his response to Covid-19 and the associated economic emergency. Whereas Trump seldom acknowledged the tragic toll the virus was inflicting on Americans, Biden paused in his inaugural address -- which the public was essentially barred from attending due to the pandemic -- to offer a moment’s silent prayer for its victims.
"We need all our strength to persevere through this dark winter. We’re entering what may be the toughest and deadliest period of the virus," he said during the address. The plan has organised goals like restoring the trust of the American people, boosting the vaccination campaign, and mitigating viral spread through aggressive masking and testing, while expanding the public health workforce.
It also seeks to expand emergency relief; safely reopen schools, businesses and travel; protect the most vulnerable and advance racial equity; and restore US global leadership with future pandemic preparedness.
The administration is seeking $1.9 trillion from Congress for its plans, which includes $20 billion for vaccines and $50 billion for testing. Taken as a whole, the strategy amounts to a more closely coordinated approach than that of the previous administration, which sidelined key agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sought to censor recommendations by prominent scientists, and said individual states should do what seems right for them.
Some of the measures were already announced in recent days, including recommending that the eligibility criteria for vaccine priority groups be widened and simplified in order to increase the rate of shots being injected.
As it stands, the federal government has overseen the allocation of 35.9 million doses to states, of which 16.5 million have been used -- or 46 percent.
The figure is well below targets set by the Trump administration, but the administration rate has been steadily ticking up in recent days. New White House vaccines coordinator Bechara Choucair restated the administration’s intention to bring online thousands of federal vaccination centres as well as the mobilisation of thousands more workers to help.
These plans would bring the financial and logistical clout of the federal government in the fight against the virus -- again, an element that had largely been missing. The administration will also continue the policy of rolling out vaccine doses for Pfizer and Moderna’s two-shot regimes as soon as they become available.
The Trump team had initially set aside the booster as reserve, but later changed course after running low on supply.
The administration also plans to invoke the Defense Production Act to boost supply of personal protective equipment, lab equipment and to maximise vaccine production. Bedingfield said that would be among the executive orders Biden plans to sign on Thursday.
Tim Manning, who will coordinate supply chain issues, told reporters he had identified 12 supply shortfalls where the law could be invoked.
Biden’s team has relentlessly criticized the Trump administration in recent weeks over its failure in particular to adequately plan for the last mile of its Covid response and get vaccines developed at record speed into arms.
An early test will be whether they achieve their own goal of vaccinating 100 million Americans within Biden’s first 100 days in office, by April 20.The United States said on Thursday it would resume its funding for the UN’s health agency as President Joe Biden shifts towards greater international cooperation in the fight against Covid-19, while also launching a $1.9 trillion plan to tackle the pandemic at home.On his first day in the job, Biden confirmed he had reversed the decision of former president Donald Trump to quit the World Health Organization (WHO).
"Under trying circumstances, this organisation has rallied the scientific and research and development community to accelerate vaccines, therapies and diagnostics," top US scientist Anthony Fauci told a WHO meeting via video-link, confirming that the US would continue to pay its dues to the organisation.
Biden was a fierce critic of Trump’s approach to tackling the virus in the US, which with more than 400,000 people dead is the world’s worst-hit nation.
The new president is seeking to vaccinate 100 million people in the next 100 days, increase the use of masks and testing, expand the public health workforce and offer more emergency relief to those struggling with the restrictions.
"For almost a year now, Americans could not look to the federal government for any strategy," said Jeff Zients, coordinator of the new Covid-19 task force. "As president Biden steps into office today, that all changes."
Virus cases are approaching 100 million globally, with more than two million deaths and many millions -- from Beijing to Berlin -- still living under lockdowns, curfews or other restrictions.
Europe has been particularly hard hit, though the Russian capital Moscow announced on Thursday it was lifting many of its harshest restrictions as Mayor Sergei Sobyanin expressed "cautious optimism" over the current figures.