BIDEN CALLS FOR URGENT ACTION ON VIRUS
President-elect sets pandemic priorities; introduces team
WILMINGTON, Del.
President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday called for urgent action on the coronavirus pandemic as he introduced a health care team that will be tested from the outset.
Biden laid out three COVID-19 priorities for his first 100 days in office: a call for all Americans to voluntarily mask up during those 100 days, a commitment to administer 100 million vaccines and a pledge to try to reopen a majority of the nation’s schools.
“I know that out of our collective pain, we will find our collective purpose: to control the pandemic, to save lives, and to heal as a nation,“Biden said.
The president-elect also said he would use the power of the federal government to require people to wear masks in federal buildings and when
traveling from state to state on planes, trains and buses.
Mostly that would codify policies already in place. But Biden said he would urge governors and mayors to impose similar requirements.
Topping the roster of Biden’s picks was health secre
tary nominee Xavier Becerra, a Latino politician who rose from humble beginnings to serve in Congress and as California’s attorney general. Others include a businessman renowned for his crisis management skills and a quartet of medical doctors, among them
Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease specialist.
The usual feel-good affirmations that accompany such unveilings were overshadowed by urgency, with new cases of COVID-19 averaging more than 200,000 a day and deaths averaging above 2,200 daily as the nation struggles with uncontrolled spread.
Vaccines are expected soon. Scientific advisers to the government meet Thursday to make a recommendation on the first one, a Pfizer shot already being administered in the United Kingdom.
But having an approved vaccine is one thing; getting it into the arms of 330 million Americans is something else altogether.
On Tuesday, the president-elect warned that his team’s preliminary review of Trump administration plans for vaccinations has found shortcomings. And he called on Congress to pass legislation to finance administration of vaccines as they become more widely available next year.
The rest of Biden’s health care agenda, from expanding insurance coverage to negotiating prices for prescription drugs, may hinge on how his administration performs in this first crucial test.
Becerra, Biden’s pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services, will be backed in the White
House by businessman Jeff Zients, who will assume the role of coronavirus response coordinator. Running complex, high-risk operations is his specialty.
Alongside Fauci, the other medical doctors selected include infectious-disease specialist Rochelle Walensky to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Vivek Murthy as surgeon general and Yale epidemiologist Marcella Nunez-Smith to head a working group to ensure fair and equitable distribution of vaccines and treatments.
Participating by video, Fauci called Biden’s 100-day plan “bold but doable, and essential to help the public avoid unnecessary risks and help us save lives.”
The Department of Health and Human Services is a $1 trillion-plus agency with 80,000 employees and a portfolio that includes drugs and vaccines, leading-edge medical research and health insurance programs covering more than 130 million Americans.