The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Biden: I need you to get vaccinated
President directs states to expand eligibility for shots, expects life to be closer to normal by Fourth of July.
One year after the nation was brought to a near-standstill by the coronavirus, President Joe Biden used his first prime-time address Thursday night to announce his plan to make all adults vaccine-eligible by May 1 and “begin to mark our independence from this virus” by the Fourth of July. He offered Americans hope and appealed anew for their help.
“I need every American to do their part. And that’s not hyperbole,” Biden said. “I need you to get vaccinated when it’s your turn and when you can find an opportunity. And to help your family, your friends, your neighbors get vaccinated as well.”
Speaking in the White House East Room, Biden announced moves to speed vaccinations, including lifting eligibility qualifications, deploying an additional 4,000 active-duty troops to support vaccination efforts and allowing more people — such as medical students, veterinarians and dentists — to deliver shots.
He is also directing more doses toward some 950 community health centers and up to 20,000 retail pharmacies, to make it easier for people to get vaccinated closer to their homes.
His aim: Let Americans gather at least in small groups for July Fourth and “make this Independence Day truly special.”
Biden was marking one year
since the onset of the pandemic that has killed more than 530,000 Americans and disrupted the lives of countless more.
“While it was different for everyone, we all lost something,” Biden said, calling the past year “a collective suffering, a collective sacrifice.”
Even as he offered optimism, Biden made clear that the July 4 timetable applied only to smaller gatherings, not larger ones, and requires cooperation from Americans to continue to wear face coverings, maintain social distancing and follow federal guidelines meant to slow the spread of the virus in the near term.
This is “not the time to not stick with the rules,” Biden said, warning of the potential for backsliding just as the nation is on the cusp of defeating the virus.
Earlier Thursday, Biden signed into law a $1.9 trillion relief package that he said will help defeat the virus, nurse the economy back to health and deliver direct aid to Americans in need. Some direct checks could begin arriving this weekend.
“This historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country,” Biden said as he signed the bill in the Oval Office.
Most noticeable to many Americans are provisions providing up to $1,400 in direct payments and extending $300 weekly emergency
unemployment benefits into early September. Also included are expanded tax credits over the next year for children, child care and family leave — some of them credits that Democrats have signaled they’d like to make permanent — plus spending for renters, feeding programs and people’s utility bills.
In his address, Biden said that as vaccine supplies continue to increase, he will direct states and territories to make all adults eligible for vaccination by May 1.
The U.S. is expecting delivery of enough doses for those 255 million adults by the end of that month, but the process of actually administering those doses will take time.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said the day before that he hopes to expand vaccine eligibility to all adults in his state by early April.
Biden said his administration is launching a nationwide website to help people find doses, saying it would address frustrations so that there would be “no more searching day and night for an appointment.”
Some Republicans, led by former President Donald Trump, offered a competing narrative about vaccines, arguing that Trump was responsible for getting the vaccine developed so quickly and initiating the mechanisms for distributing it.
Biden, they say, has overreached by keeping much of the country shut down, failed to reopen schools more swiftly and passed a massive and unnecessary spending bill.
In a statement issued this week, Trump said, “I hope that everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 (often referred to as the China Virus) Vaccine, that if I wasn’t president, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all. I hope everyone remembers!”
On Thursday, GOP leaders sought to play down Biden’s role in the strides the country has made in fighting the virus, taking him to task for passing the relief bill without a single Republican vote.
“President Biden and this Democratic government inherited a tide that had already begun to turn toward decisive victory,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch Mcconnell, R-KY., in a Senate floor speech.
The House gave final congressional approval to the sweeping package by a near party line 220211 vote on Wednesday, seven weeks after Biden entered the White House and four days after the Senate passed the bill.
What happened
The Atlanta City Council’s transportation committee voted to move forward with phase 2 of the project and will advance the measure on to the full council for approval. The new “end-around” taxiway on the south side of the airfield will increase the maximum departure rate, reduce delays during taxiing and greatly decrease the need for aircraft to cross a runway.
The first phase, involving ground work at the site, was completed in November 2018. It was followed by work on the design for phase 2, which was completed in mid-2020 before the work was contracted out.
What’s ahead
During phase 2, which will cost $55.9 million, Mccarthy Improvement will demolish concrete, asphalt and underground utilities; build jet blast walls, retaining walls and an embankment; relocate nearby airport roads; and construct the taxiwaycurvetoconnectothertaxiways. Mccarthy submitted the lowest bid for nearly two year’s worth of work.
Why it’s safer
Runway crossings increase the
risk of aircraft entering the path of another plane that is taking off or landing. End-around taxiways can improve safety.
What it costs
The cost was previously estimated at about $70 million, but is now expected to cost $80.5 million. The Federal Aviation Administration approved grant funding for a portion of the cost of the project.
More details
The south end-around taxiway project comes after the airport built an end-around known as taxiway Victor on the north side of the airfield in 2007, to eliminate 600 to 700 runway crossings a day. Hartsfield-jackson said plans for the new endaround taxiway “was prompted, in part, by the success of the taxiway Victor project.”
Japan fell quiet at 2:46 p.m. Thursday to mark the minute that an earthquake began 10 years ago, setting off a tsunami and nuclear crisis that devastated the country’s northeast coast in a disaster that one survivor said he fears people are beginning to forget.
Carrying bouquets of flowers, many walked to the seaside or visited graves to pray for relatives and friends washed away by the water. Emperor Naruhito and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga were among those observing a moment of silence at a memorial in Tokyo. Dignitaries and representatives of the survivors spoke — but most watched the ceremony online or on television because of restrictions to slow the coronavirus pandemic.
The magnitude-9.0 quake that struck on March 11, 2011 — one of the strongest on record — triggered a wall of water that swept far inland, destroying towns and causing meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
The days following the quake were terrifying for many in Japan and farther afield, as hydrogen explosions released radiation into the air and technicians worked furiously to try to cool the plant’s nuclear fuel by pumping in seawater. There were concerns and confusion about the extent of meltdowns, and how far radiation might travel, including fears that Tokyo and even the U.S. west coast were at risk. Officials said they were not, but panicked shoppers as far away as China and Russia scrambled to stock up on goods they thought would protect them.
More than 18,000 people died, mostly in the tsunami, and nearly half a million people were displaced. The government recognizes another 3,700 — mostly from Fukushima prefecture — who died of causes linked to the disaster, such as stress.
Ten years on, more than 40,000 people are still unable to return home, and areas near the wrecked plant are still off-limits due to contamination from the initial radiation fallout. Many in Japan have said that the country’s intense focus on physically rebuilding has at times ignored other healing that needed to be done.
“Reconstruction in disaster-hit areas has moved forward significantly, but recovery of the survivors’ hearts is not making as much progress as we wish,” Makoto Saito, a teacher at an elementary school in Minamisoma who lost his 5-year-old son Shota in the tsunami, said in a speech at the Tokyo ceremony. The government has said this is the last year it will organize a national commemoration for the disaster. Saito, representing Fukushima survivors, said that he is afraid memories are fading outside the disaster zone and he is committed to preventing that from happening by continuing to recount the lessons from the disaster and telling the stories of his son.
Naruhito said “my heart aches” when he thinks of those who have struggled to adapt to drastic changes to their lives because of the triple disaster, including the loss of loved ones, jobs and whole communities.
“I also consider it important to heal emotional scars and watch over the mental and physical health of those afflicted, including the elderly and children,” he said. He stressed that it’s important for people to stand by them and help reconstruct their lives “without leaving even a single soul behind in this difficult situation.”
In Tokyo’s posh shopping district of Ginza, pedestrians stopped to observe the moment of silence as in previous anniversaries. But a memorial concert at the nearby Hibiya park, which has drawn many people in past years, was held online this year due to the pandemic and attracted only a small audience. Some anti-nuclear groups also held a protest in Tokyo.