On vax attax to tackle COV

Joe’s 100M-dose plan

President-elect Joe Biden on Friday unveiled a broad plan to accelerate the sluggish level of stateby-state COVID-19 vaccination rates by employing 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.

The main pillars of Biden’s plan include the creation of mobile vaccination units to help inoculate communities in hard-to-reach areas and encouraging states to vaccinate anyone over the age of 65.

In a bid to get as many Americans vaccinated as quickly as possible, the Biden administration will call up the National Guard and FEMA, the federal government’s lead disaster-response agency, to open an initial 100 federally supported community vaccination centers around the nation.

In a speech in Wilmington, Del., on Friday, Biden laid the blame for the slow rollout at the feet of state authorities.

“Implementation has been too rigid and confusing. If you were to ask most people today, they couldn’t tell you who exactly is getting vaccinated,” Biden said. “What they do know is there are tens of millions of doses of vaccine sitting unused in freezers around the country.”

Vaccination rates continue to fall far short of what public health officials had projected. As of Friday morning, 31.1 million shots have been distributed around the country, but only 10.5 million people have received their first jab, according to CDC data.

Biden described an enormous military effort similar to the one the Trump administration ordered at the start of the pandemic when he deployed the USNS Comfort to help New York City’s overwhelmed hospitals.

“By the end of our first month in office, we will have 100 federally supported centers across the nation that will ultimately vaccinate millions of people,” he said. “Think of all places that are convenient and accessible: school gymnasiums, sports stadiums, community centers.”

Biden warned “things will get worse before they get better,” dashing hopes that the delivery of the newly approved drug would quickly ease the ravages of the pandemic.

“Infection rates are up 34 percent, more people are hospitalized because of COVID than ever before,” he said. “The policy changes we’re going to be making will take time to show up in the COVID statistics.”