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Biden says yet to see detailed Trump distribution plan
States faced a deadline on Friday to place orders for the coronavirus vaccine as many reported record infections, hospitalizations and deaths, while hospitals were pushed to the breaking point — with the worst feared yet to come.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — States faced a deadline on Friday to place orders for the coronavirus vaccine as many reported record infections, hospitalizations and deaths, while hospitals were pushed to the breaking point — with the worst feared yet to come.
The number of Americans hospitalized with COVID-19 hit an all-time high Thursday at 100,667, according to the COVID Tracking Project. That figure has more than doubled over the past month, while new daily cases are averaging 210,000 and deaths are averaging 1,800 per day, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
In a speech Friday, President-elect Joe Biden, who predicted a “bleak future” if Congress doesn’t take speedy action on a coronavirus aid bill, also expressed concern that so far he’s seen “no detailed plan” from the Trump administration on how to distribute an approved coronavirus vaccine, but said he and his team are working on their own proposal to fill in the gaps.
Biden has said that while he doesn’t support a nationwide lockdown, he plans to ask Americans to commit to 100 days ofmask-wearing to help combat the virus as one of his first acts as president.
But one of his major challenges in turning the
tide of the coronavirus pandemic will be distributing a vaccine. While the Trump administration has undertaken some planning around vaccine distribution, Biden said Friday that their proposal lacks significant details.
“There isnodetailed plan — that we’ve seen, anyway — as to how you get a vaccine out of a container, into an injection syringe, into someone’s arm,” he said.
The president-elect said that while his team agrees with some of the priorities the Trump administration has laid out in its vaccine distribution plan, more work needs to be done.
One of the major questions, Biden added, is how to get the vaccine to minority communities, which are disproportionately affected by the virus.
He said he is working on an “overall plan,” and he asked government infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci to be part of his COVID-19 team to help with that planning. Biden said the distribution alone was a “very expensive proposition.”
The surging number of virus cases has led states and municipalities to roll back their reopening plans. And more restrictions may be on the way as lower temperatures and holiday
travel lead to records for confirmed cases and deaths.
Officials also are concerned that Americans will let down their guard once states begin administering vaccines.
It will take weeks to months before many of the nation’s most vulnerable residents can be immunized, White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said Thursday. Until then, Americans should not hold indoor gatherings with people they don’t live with or take off their masks when they’re outdoors, and should continue to keep their distance from others and wash their hands, she
said.
“I think everyone can see that this current surge that we’re experiencing is much faster and broader across the United States and is lasting longer,” Birx said after a meeting at United Nations headquarters in NewYork.
Nationwide, the coronavirus is blamed for more than 278,000 deaths and 14 million confirmed infections.
An influential modeling group at the University of Washington said Friday the expected U.S. vaccine rollout will mean 9,000 fewer deaths by April 1. The Institute for HealthMetrics and Evaluation predicts that warmer temperatures and then rising vaccination rates will lead to steady declines in the daily death toll starting in February.
But even with a vaccine, the death toll could reach 770,000 by April 1 if states do not act to bring current surges under control, the group said.
States learned only this week how many doses to expect and when, and received guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommending that health care workers and nursing home patients get the first doses. That meant that some had to make last-minute adjustments.
Meanwhile, Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert has apologized for suggesting U.K. authorities rushed their authorization of a COVID-19 vaccine that was announced this week, saying he has “great faith” in the country’s regulators.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had sparked controversy with an earlier interview in which he said U.K. regulators hadn’t acted “as carefully” as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Fauci said late Thursday that he meant to say U.S. authorities do things differently than their British counterparts, not better, but his comments weren’t phrased properly.
“I do have great faith in both the scientific community and the regulatory community at the U.K., and anyone who knows me and my relationship with that over literally decades, you know that’s the case,” Fauci told the BBC.