Biden’s virus plan awaited
Logistics of vaccinating millions raise the stakes
Congress is bracing for Presidentelect Joe Biden’s national COVID-19 strategy as a replacement for the heretofore state-by-state approach.
The incoming administration’s game plan reflects Democrats’ belief that a more comprehensive plan, some of it outlined in the House’s $2 trillion coronavirus aid bill, is needed to control the pandemic. Republicans have resisted big spending but agree that additional funding is needed.
With a vaccine in sight, the complicated logistics of vaccinating hundreds of millions of Americans raise the stakes on the major undertaking.
WASHINGTON – Congress is bracing for President-elect Joe Biden to move beyond the Trump administration’s state-by-state approach to the COVID-19 crisis and build out a national strategy to fight the pandemic and distribute the eventual vaccine.
The incoming administration’s approach reflects Democrats’ belief that a more comprehensive plan, some of it outlined in the House’s $2 trillion coronavirus aid bill, is needed to get the pandemic under control. Republicans have resisted big spending but agree additional funding is needed. With the nation on edge but a vaccine in sight, the complicated logistics of vaccinating hundreds of millions of Americans raise the stakes on the major undertaking.
“We have an incredible challenge on our hands,” said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, which is approaching the anniversary of its first reported case of the virus last January.
A vaccine can only go so far, Murray warned, without a distribution plan. “A vaccine can sit on a shelf. A vaccination is what we’re talking about,” she said.
As Congress weighs a new round of COVID-19 relief, federal officials say doses of the vaccine could begin shipping within a day of Food and Drug Administration approval. Three pharmaceutical manufacturers – Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca – have announced early results. But the rollout faces a patchwork of state plans, a transitioning White House and potential backlash from vaccine skeptics, despite the rising U.S. death toll of more than 260,000 people.
Biden said Tuesday on NBC’s “Nightly News with Lester Holt” that his team has started meeting with COVID-19 officials at the White House on how to “get from a vaccine being distributed to a person being able to get vaccinated.”
States submitted draft vaccination planning documents last month, but not all of them have made full plans public. Private Capitol Hill briefings by officials from Operation Warp Speed, the federal vaccine effort, left some lawmakers fuming last week over what they called a lack of coordination with Biden’s camp.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday that his department “immediately” started working with Biden’s staff after the General Services Administration formally acknowledged the election results.
Azar said he wanted to ensure Biden’s transition would be “in the spirit of looking out for the health and well
being of the American people and, in particular, saving lives through this COVID-19 pandemic.”
In Congress, Republicans largely rejected the $2 trillion-plus House bill from Democrats as excessive. They prefer their own $500 billion Senate effort, saying states and cities can tap funding from previous relief legislation. Senate Democrats blocked that bill twice as insufficient.
Biden’s campaign called for $25 billion for vaccines to “guarantee it gets to every American, cost-free.” That’s similar to the amount included in both the House and the Senate bills, through with different strategies, and Congress previously mandated that vaccines be free. With fresh legislation stalled, it’s uncertain if states will have the resources needed once the FDA approves the vaccines.
As Congress debates funding, at least two Republican senators – Rob Portman of Ohio and Steve Daines of Montana – are participating in vaccine trials as a way to build confidence among Americans skeptical of the federal effort.
Daines, who is participating in the Pfizer trials, asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday to consider the “unique challenges” of distributing the vaccine to remote and rural communities like those in his state.
Daines said in a letter to the CDC that it will also be “critical” to ensure access for front-line health care and essential workers, as well as older adults and people with medical conditions.
Other lawmakers, though, have brushed off concerns. GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said he expects vaccine distribution will be “well underway” by the time Biden takes office Jan. 20.
Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, grew concerned this summer as she said the Trump administration outsourced much of the vaccine distribution planning to the states.
She drafted a 19-page paper calling for $25 billion for a vaccination program with supply chains, hired personnel, drive-in clinics and other ways to provide no-cost vaccines. She warned of the Trump administration’s “lack of centralized leadership” and “chaotic communication” with the states.
Biden and Murray have since talked about her approach, which draws on input from health professionals on Biden’s team. Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, a member of Biden’s COVID-19 task force, briefed Senate Democrats the week after the election.
Murray compared the vaccine effort to sending a man to the moon or fighting a world war. She said it will take all Americans joining to say, “This is a pandemic, and I’m going to do my part to get the country out of it.”