President Joe Biden is aiming to get vaccines in the arms of 300 million Americans by the end of the summer.
There is no guarantee that Biden’s course of action will be successful, but the briefing on Tuesday (January 26) represents a bold and ambitious plan set out by the administration to get the country to return to some sort of normalcy.
If he is successful, Biden’s promise during that briefing will be, according to CNN, hailed as a turning point in the pandemic’s course. An unsuccessful undertaking, however, might make Biden’s presidency that much more difficult.
Health officials on Biden’s team have noted the disarray they inherited from Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic. The new CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said the agency doesn’t have clear data on the number of available vaccines, a clear indication of what the new leadership came into following Trump’s departure.
Biden is focused on getting control of the pandemic, signing executive actions to ramp up production for PPE and equipment needed to administer the vaccine so that a more coordinated effort can be made at local, state, and federal levels.
“To a nation waiting for action, let me be clearest on this point: Help is on the way,” Biden said during the briefing after he announced the government would be purchasing an additional 200 million doses of the vaccine.
According to Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, told CNN that Biden’s plan, if successful, could help get us out of what we’ve been living this past year.
“Let’s say we are able to get 300 million people vaccinated by the summer, life changes dramatically, and we get out of this situation we are living in where the pandemic dominates our lives,” Dr. Jha said.
On Wednesday (January 27), President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 Task Force gave their first briefing, sharing data and providing updates to the American people.
The briefings are set to take place three times a week, and led by scientists and health experts.
For now, Americans continue to endure and brace for grim milestones of the winter brought on by the pandemic, while hoping Biden’s plan works.
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