WASHINGTON — President Biden unveiled a broad, 198-page plan to combat the COVID-19 crisis Thursday in an executive order-signing event at the White House, where he assured Americans that help was on the way but warned that things would “get worse before they got better.”
The new commander-in-chief signed 10 executive actions mandating the wearing of masks during interstate travel, boosting the production of the coronavirus vaccine and medical supplies using the Defense Production Act and instructing the Department of Health and Human Services to provide guidance to schools on how to safely reopen.
Biden on Thursday pledged his administration would mount a “full-scale wartime effort” to get the vaccine out the door and into the arms of the American people as quickly as possible.
“We’re in a national emergency and it’s time we treat it like one,” he said.
He also announced new guidelines that will require anyone entering the US from overseas to be tested before their arrival prior to a two-week quarantine.
Still, he admitted, “The brutal truth is it’s going to take months before we can get the majority of Americans vaccinated.
“We didn’t get into this mess overnight, and it will take months to turn this around,” Biden said. “Despite the best intentions, we’re going to face setbacks.“ But he declared: “To a nation waiting for action, let me be clear on this point: Help is on the way.”
Biden’s biggest task will be accelerating the sluggish level of state-by-state COVID-19 vaccination rates, including in New York, where officials have warned vaccine supplies are about to run out.
During his speech, Biden, 78, took less-than-veiled shots at the efforts of his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, despite at least two vaccines having been developed in just a matter of months.
“For the past year, we couldn’t rely on the federal government to act with the urgency and focus we needed and we have seen the tragic cost of that failure: 3,000 to 4,000 deaths per day,” Biden said in front of pool reporters.
“While the vaccine provides so much hope, the rollout has been a dismal failure thus far. I understand the despair and frustration of so many Americans and how they’re feeling,” he said.
“I understand why so many governors, mayors and tribal leaders feel like they’re left on their own without a clear plan to get them through this crisis,” he said.
Last week, Biden unveiled highlights of his plan to combat the disease that has so far killed 400,000 Americans, vowing to deploy FEMA and the National Guard in a bid to make good on his promise to deliver 100 million jabs in his first 100 days in office.
So far, 37.9 million shots of the newly-approved miracle jabs have been distributed nationwide, but only 17.5 million have been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Trump administration had previously aimed to vaccinate 20 million Americans by the end of 2020.
To rapidly accelerate vaccinations, the Biden administration has directed FEMA to set up 100 federally-funded vaccination centers around the country.
The CDC has also been told to launch a program making the vaccines available in local pharmacies which will be operational by Feb. 7, Biden said.
Still, the president urged Americans to wear masks, saying they were the most effective way to combat the virus while vaccination efforts lagged.
“The mask has become a partisan issue, unfortunately, but it’s a patriotic act.”
Up to this point, state officials have been in charge of distributing the vaccine. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio have faced growing criticism for their handling of the state’s vaccine rollout, with many at-risk seniors left crying out for their shot.
At a City Hall press conference on Tuesday, de Blasio said the Big Apple would need to start closing injection sites with supplies set to run out as soon as Friday.
“This is crazy. This is not the way it should be,” Hizzoner declared, blaming the federal government for not sending more jabs to New York.
“Right now it is up to the federal government,” he went on, but said he was “very hopeful” that the Biden administration “is going to fix a lot of this.”
The administration’s COVID-19 plan released on Thursday says the federal government will “end the policy of holding back significant levels of doses” and encourage state leaders to instead “move through the priority groups more quickly.”
New York state’s data shows it has far more doses than have been administered, with hundreds of thousands of doses withheld for the federally-run nursing home vaccination program.
On Monday, Gov. Cuomo said he would start trying to reallocate unused doses from the nursing home program into the main pool in an attempt to bolster supplies.