Biden outlines plan for booster shots, more vaccine mandates

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden accelerated federal efforts to combat the resurgent COVID-19 pandemic on Wednesday, offering many Americans booster shots starting next month, requiring nursing home workers to be vaccinated and imploring private businesses to mandate inoculations for staff.

“We’re still in a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Biden said in a speech from the White House. “Quite frankly, it’s a tragedy.”

With cases of the delta variant rising across the country, the Biden administration said it plans to provide booster shots starting the week of Sept. 20 to adults who had received the two required doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. People will be eligible to receive the boosters eight months after their second dose, officials said.

Vaccines, the president said, were the most effective protection against the coronavirus, followed by wearing masks.

Biden, keeping his focus on his top domestic priority in a week dominated by a foreign policy crisis in Afghanistan, outlined additional steps his administration is taking to combat the pandemic.

It is requiring nursing homes that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid funding to mandate vaccinations for its staff or risk losing those dollars. And the president threatened to take legal action through the Department of Education against governors that attempt to prevent local school districts from enacting mask mandates.

Biden also sought to pressure elected leaders who “are trying to turn public safety measures ... into political disputes for their own political gain,” a clear jab at Republican Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas.

The two governors have sought to block localities from requiring masks in schools, even as their states are enduring deadly surges in coronavirus infections.

“We’re not going to sit by as governors try to block and intimidate educators protecting our children,” Biden said, adding that money in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan enacted in March could be used to compensate any teacher or admin

to take after the Flames went through the spring season (delayed from fall 2020) with no COVID-19 issues as teams canceled left and right around them.

“It’s rough,” Duenas said. “Now I know how everyone else felt during shutdowns during spring. I don’t like it.”