The death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to pass 500,000 at some point next month, President Biden said, in remarks that offered a whiplash from the previous administration.
He added that his administration would need months “to turn things around” from the Trump administration, which eschewed a federal role when it came to confronting the pandemic and botched many of the limited programs it did attempt.
In the remarks, Biden focused on two elements of fighting the pandemic: improving vaccine rollout to hit his administration’s goal of 100 million shots delivered in his first 100 days in office, and enacting measures to control the spread of the virus.
On the latter point, Biden signed an executive order mandating mask-wearing on planes, trains, and buses. He also asked Americans to wear masks for his first 100 days in office.
“It’s a patriotic act,” Biden said. “They’re the single best thing to do because [vaccines] take time to work.”
Biden also elaborated on his vaccine distribution plan, which will see a beefed up federal role in coordinating the response to the virus. Biden said that he had directed FEMA to create a “COVID response liaison” for each state, and that the government would hire vaccinators “to meet the nation’s needs” amid a national shortage in people available to vaccinate.
He added that his administration would “move heaven and Earth” to meet the vaccination goal.
Later in the day, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Tony Fauci described the Biden vaccination plan as “taking what’s going and amplifying it” but denied that the effort was “starting from scratch.”
“If we get the majority of Americans, 70-85 percent, vaccinated by [autumn], we could have a degree of herd immunity that would get us back to normal,” Fauci added.
The deaths are horrible.
May they all rest in peace and deserved better from the Trump Administration.
I thought he did well. Stumbled a bit verbally here and there, as much from being tired as from anything else. Overall, the message was sound and reassuring, but also sad in a way, when you think about how much we lost because of Trump.
Incidentally, Biden used the same small table that Trump famously did. I hope the people who previously ridiculed the use of the table have taken some time to rethink their priorities!
Does he mean the majority of Americans over 16? That’s still not clear to me. Are we talking 70 percent of those people, or 70 percent of all Americans?
And is it going to be possible, when there are millions who think the vaccine is going to inject Bill Gates’ DNA and turn them into Chinese Communists?
But, hey, the GOP says we can’t afford $1.9 trillion to beat back this dystopian cataclysm.
I mean, it’s not as if those half-million corpses are billionaires missing out on a tax cut, or anything.
Some dystopian cataclysms just aren’t worth the trouble.