Delco’s top wish for new administration: Vaccinations
When asked what they hope the first 100 days of the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris administration brings, one thing almost unanimously rose to the top of local politicians’ lists.
“Vaccines, vaccines, vaccines,” said state Sen. Tim Kearney, D-26 of Swarthmore. “We’ve literally got to make it rain vaccines. …The COVID response and the vaccines have to be the number one thing to push.”
“As a nurse, I hope for a coordinated, science based response to the COVID pandemic, which has claimed far too many lives,” said Colleen Guiney, chair of the Delaware County Democratic Party.
“At top of mind has to be a national response to the COVID pandemic,” said U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-5 of Swarthmore. “Our office has been begging for this. I think the country has been begging for it, because without that national response, we haven’t been able to control the spread of the virus or attack it in really meaningful ways, and that’s why among developed nations, our country has the worst record of any with the highest per capita deaths.”
Kearney said President Donald Trump has been distracted from a full-court press on the pandemic by a contentious election and other matters, but hopes Biden and Harris will focus first and foremost on building a national vaccine distribution network.
Biden has said he plans to release nearly all of the currently available doses of COVID vaccine in order to get as many first shots into the arms of Americans as possible, reversing the prior administration’s stance that some vaccine should be held back to ensure those who get the first dose can receive the necessary booster shot two weeks later.
Scanlon said invoking the Defense Production Act to ensure vaccines are being produced at speed, requiring mask usage in federal buildings and assisting states with funding to fight the pandemic could be the tipping point the nation has been waiting for.
“My most immediate concern after vaccinating our health care and first responder workers is getting vaccines to our seniors and their communities, the school systems and local businesses,” said state Rep. Craig Williams, R-160 of Concord. “We need to put our collective shoulders into getting us safely to the other side of the pandemic and get our economy flourishing.”
“I’m hoping for a coherent, coordinated effort to roll the vaccine out, to deliver a consistent public message about wearing masks and to depoliticize this virus and to get back to some sense of normalcy with the way in which we are pursuing healing in our nation, both physically with COVID and perhaps more spiritually with just not bickering with one another about things we don’t need to bicker about,” said county Council Chairman Brian Zidek.
As a nurse, Guiney said she is hoping for a coordinated, science-based response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but is looking to the incoming administration to lead the charge on environmental issues, provide equitable educational resources to the next generation, and provide opportunities and justice for all people – regardless of race, economic status, religion or other factors.
“In their first 100 days of the Biden/Harris administration, I am hopeful that we can actively work together to face the many challenges of 2021,” she said. “Our nation has been traumatized, and needs strong, ethical and factually based leadership to help us heal.”
Kearney said he is also looking to the new administration to reform federal immigration policies, put knowledgeable people into cabinet positions and get a stimulus package through Congress as quickly as possible.
“I’m the minority chair of the Local Government Committee in the Senate, and the problem we have with local governments and their particular funding is they are just in desperate need of resources,” he said. “All of their normal ways of getting income are not really working these days … and we’re really going to need stimulus money to help keep these local governments afloat.”
Kearney added that he hopes some money can be freed up to help SEPTA, which suffered drastic cuts to ridership as the pandemic wore on, and that incoming Education Secretary Miguel Cardona will waive state testing requirements to remove that burden from school districts already struggling to educate students virtually.
State Sen. Anthony Williams, D-8 of Philadelphia, said there are a number of issues he hopes the country will move forward on, but none more pressing than reducing the number of homicides due to illegal guns, particularly in urban areas like Philadelphia and Chester.
“It would seem to me that those in the previous administration that attacked the COVID virus should have been attacking this issue as well,” he said. “That would be the most pressing issue that I would hope this presidency would begin to grapple with.”
Anthony Williams said it is a cost issue, not just in terms of the significant amounts spent in emergency rooms treating gunshot patients, but also when gun violence takes over communities and impacts day-to-day life for residents in everything from schooling to real estate.
“And most importantly, morally, it should be that all of us should not have to live in these communities that have this level of violence in them without being abated,” he said. “So I would hope that this presidency would turn its attention to that in a national way. Not simply around gun control, because the violence is a symptom. It’s a question about why are so many feeling it’s appropriate to walk up and shoot someone, take a life and not even think about it.”
State Rep. Margo Davidson, D-164 of Upper Darby, summed up what she wants to see in the first 100 days in a single word: Justice.
“After a year-long pandemic and economic crisis, that would look like money, resources, relief to individuals, families, small businesses, schools and communities,” she said. “That would be just the first step in the quest for a more equitable society and the soul of our nation.”
Scanlon, speaking over the phone from Washington, D.C. Tuesday, said it was “jarring,” to see some 25,000 National Guard troops deployed to the U.S. Capitol following a Jan. 6 insurgency.
“In the last week, they’ve installed perimeter fencing around the entire Capital,” said Scanlon, who voted earlier this month to impeach the president over the riot that delayed Congress certifying Biden and Harris as the winners of the Nov. 4 presidential election. “It’s a fortress right now.”
Scanlon said she has passed her COVID-19 test and will be attending today’s inauguration, where Harris becomes the first woman – and woman of color – elected vice president.
“Personally, as a women, it means a lot to see someone in that position, rising to Vice President and to national leadership,” said Scanlon. “I think the country has reached a point where this is a necessary step forward, because women do contribute and take their place in every realm of our society, so seeing that on the national stage I think is good for the country and for our children to see, that leadership is not limited to one gender.”
Scanlon said that she expects Harris will have an outsized role in working with Congress the way Biden did during his stint as V.P., and that there will likely be the same kind of partnership between the two that was seen with Biden and President Barack Obama.
“Having policy rather than tweets emanating from the White House is going to be good for all of us,” said Scanlon.
When asked what she hopes to see out of the administration in its first 100 days, she half-jokingly asked, “How much time do you have?”
Extending an eviction moratorium and forbearance on student loans, reforming immigration policy and rejoining the Paris Climate Accord were just a few items on a laundry list that Scanlon said will need to be addressed to get the country “back on track,” as will properly staffing and funding various departments like the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice.
“So many of our agencies have been decimated, their leadership has been undermined by political appointees, folks have been forced to resign,” said Scanlon. “There’s a lot of rebuilding that needs to be done. I’m concerned about the ‘brain drain’ that we may have seen with people being forced out of positions, but I think we’re seeing that the Biden administration is looking to appoint people who know what the jobs of these agencies are supposed to do and are well positioned to rebuild them to serve the American people, as opposed to corporate interests.”