Biden celebrates COVID-19 shots for youngest children
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden visited a vaccination clinic Tuesday to celebrate that virtually all Americans can now get a COVID-19 shot Tuesday after the authorization of vaccines for kids under 5 over the weekend.
Biden visited a clinic in Washington, where some of the first shots were given to young children in the last major age group ineligible for vaccines.
While anyone aged six months and up is now eligible for vaccines, the administration is cautioning that it expects the pace of shots for the youngest kids to be slower than older ones, as parents are more likely to rely on their children’s pediatricians to administer them.
Addressing parents, Biden said, “I encourage you to talk to the doctor after you make a plan to get your child vaccinated.”
Biden also delivered a thinly veiled criticism of Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who blocked his health department from ordering and delivering pediatric vaccines in his state, a move the White House said delayed the availability of shots for kids under 5.
“Elected officials shouldn’t get in the way and can make it more difficult for parents who want their children to be vaccinated and want to protect them and those around them,” he said.
In related news:
A bipartisan panel of health experts called Tuesday for an overhaul of the American public health system that would greatly expand the role of the federal government, giving Washington the authority to set minimum health standards and coordinate a patchwork of nearly 3,000 state, local and tribal agencies.
The recommendations flow from what the panel, the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a National Public Health System, described as the inadequacies and inequities of the United States’ response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 1 million Americans.
But in a report released
Tuesday, the panel said it also wanted to address the failures of the nation’s public health agencies to protect Americans from other health risks, including drug overdoses, diabetes and maternal mortality.
In recommending the creation of a new “national public health system,” the bipartisan panel, financed by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit research group focused on health care issues, is dipping its toe into contentious political waters.
While other countries have centralized public health authorities, public health in the United States is largely managed at the state and local level. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal public health agency, does not have the authority to compel states to act.
State health agencies and the CDC have a long history of working collaboratively, but throughout the pandemic, elected state officials — particularly those in red states — have been reluctant to cede control.