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Joe Biden pledged Tuesday to ensure 100 million coronavirus vaccines will be administered to Americans during his first 100 days in the White House, as Donald Trump held a side event in which he ignored the deepening health crisis. public and repeated his false claims that he, not Biden, won the November election.
The Democratic president-elect on Tuesday introduced his new leadership team covering health care and unveiled an aggressive plan to defeat the coronavirus pandemic that stands in stark contrast to the efforts of the Trump administration.
Speaking at an event in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, Biden formally introduced the team of scientists and physicians he assembled to guide the nation through what they hope will be the final stage of a public health crisis that has killed nearly 284,000 American lives and there is one of the worst crises to ever hit America.
Preparing to take office amid what experts believe could be the pandemic’s darkest hour, Biden outlined his priorities for his first three months in office, including a commitment to distribute “100 shots in the first 100 days. “, a request for all Americans. wearing masks during that period to prevent the spread of the virus and the promise to open a “majority of schools”.
“Outside of our collective pain, we are going to find a collective purpose,” Biden said, in a grim tone as he acknowledged the death toll from the brutal increase in the coronavirus that averaged more than 2,200 deaths per day. “To control the pandemic, save lives and heal as a nation.”
At the head of what Biden called his “core Covid healthcare team” was Xavier Becerra, his nominee for secretary of health and human services. Becerra, the son of Mexican immigrants, served 12 terms in Congress and is California’s attorney general. He would be the first Latino to serve as the United States secretary of health.
“The mission of the Department of Health and Human Services has never been as vital or urgent as it is today,” Becerra said via video link from California.
Other members of the health team include former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, whom Biden reappointed for the position, and Rochelle Walensky, whom he chose to head the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, accepted Biden’s invitation to remain director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a position he has held since 1984, and will serve as Biden’s chief medical adviser.
“Like any good doctor, he will tell me what I need to know, not what I want to know,” Biden said of Fauci, who has become one of the most prominent and trusted sources of information during the coronavirus epidemic, despite his turbulent relationship with Trump. Biden said he was honored to be the seventh president Fauci would serve.
In a prerecorded video, Fauci said that the current public health crisis is “the most difficult we have faced as a nation” and warned that “the road ahead will not be easy.”
Echoing Fauci, Biden and his nominees had clear eyes on the challenges that lay ahead. The promise of multiple vaccines has raised hope, but his team will stand trial for the execution of what Biden promised would be the “most efficient mass vaccination plan in US history.” A coronavirus vaccine from pharmaceutical company Pfizer is expected to receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration as soon as this week.
Still, “developing a vaccine is just a Herculean task; distributing it is another, ”Biden said, acknowledging that it could take longer than expected and would require persuading skeptical Americans to get vaccinated.
That, Biden said, runs the risk of slowing down the process. He implored Congress to pass a financial aid package for the coronavirus that would help fund the administration of vaccines. Anticipating aid, Biden warned, could dramatically “slow and paralyze” the distribution process.
Biden promised a completely different approach than the current occupant of the White House, who spent his final weeks in office ignoring the crisis, obsessed instead with overturning the results of an election he lost with increasingly savage legal challenges.
While Trump has long downplayed the threat of the disease and ignored public health guidelines, Biden, who used his presidential campaign to demonstrate the severity of the pandemic, said his team would “spare no effort” to defeat the virus and repeated his promise. be guided by science.
In a duel celebrating Operation Warp Speed, Trump boasted that his administration had procured vaccines much faster than expected and claimed that even its critics hailed the achievement as “one of the miracles of modern medicine.”
However, the White House celebration event came as his administration faced new scrutiny after the New York Times reported that the Trump administration turned down the opportunity to purchase more doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine this summer. The White House has denied the story, although various media outlets have corroborated it.
As the virus continues to spread uncontrollably, Trump has refused to use his remaining time in office, and his significant political influence, to urge Americans to take safety precautions like wearing masks and social distancing. . Meanwhile, Biden has little power to influence the public response to the virus until he takes office next month.
In his comments from Delaware, Biden cautioned that a preliminary review of the Trump administration’s vaccine distribution plan found several shortcomings, and it was unclear how the administration had planned to get vaccines from containers into the arms of 330 million Americans. Until then, Biden said the “easiest” and most “patriotic” action Americans could take to protect their families and friends was to wear a mask.
“We are in a very dark winter; things can get worse before they get better,” Biden said. “It is overwhelming. But I promise you we will move on. “
