Spc. Katherine Deskins (L) of the Nevada Army National Guard administers a Moderna COVID-19 vaccination to Clark County Fire Department Capt. Jasmine Ghazinour on the first day of Clark County’s pilot vaccination program at Cashman Center on Jan. 14, 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ethan Miller | Getty Images
President-elect Joe Biden plans to use FEMA and the National Guard to build coronavirus vaccine clinics in the United States, according to new details of his Covid-19 vaccination plan released by his transition team on Friday.
The Biden administration will also “start quickly” making the vaccines available at local pharmacies in the US, which should ensure Americans have access to doses at facilities just miles from their homes, according to the plan.
“Here’s the deal: the more people we vaccinate, the sooner we do it, the sooner we can save lives and leave this pandemic behind and get back to our lives and our loved ones,” Biden said during a speech in Wilmington. , Delaware, Thursday night. “We don’t come out overnight and we can’t do it as a breakaway nation.”
Drugstore chains and pharmacies would play a greater role in the distribution of the vaccine once the government expanded access to more people. But the slower-than-expected rollout has frustrated pharmacy chains. The National Association of Chain Drug Stores earlier this week called on the federal government to allow states to send more doses directly to pharmacies, as well as hospitals and health departments.
The group estimated that the country’s pharmacies could administer at least 100 million doses of vaccines each month, surpassing the incoming administration’s promise of 100 million injections in 100 days.
The Biden administration has said that current vaccination efforts are not enough to quickly and fairly vaccinate the vast majority of the U.S. population, adding, “We need to make sure those on the ground have what they need to getting vaccinations into people’s arms. “
The pace of vaccinations in the US is going much slower than officials had hoped. At 6 a.m. ET Friday, there were more than 31.1 million doses of vaccine distributed across the US, but just over 12.2 million injections were administered, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Meanwhile, cases are growing rapidly, with the US registering at least 238,800 new Covid-19 cases and at least 3,310 virus-related deaths every day, based on a seven-day average calculated by CNBC using data from Johns Hopkins University.
“We are in a very dark winter,” Biden said during a speech on Friday. “Almost a year later, we are still far from normal. The honest truth is this: things are going to get worse before they get better,” he said. He called the US vaccine rollout a “failure”.
Under the plan, Biden will also invoke the Defense Production Act to “maximize the production of vaccines and vaccines for the country.”
The advisers to the president-to-be had previously hinted that he would invoke the wartime production law, which allows the president to force companies to prioritize production for national security in order to bolster vaccine production.
Under the plan, the law will increase the supply of necessary equipment that could otherwise cause bottlenecks in the vaccine rollout should there be a shortage, including glass vials, syringes, stoppers and needles. It also increases the capacity to package the vaccines in vials.
Biden’s plan will also encourage states to qualify more than health workers and residents and long-term care staff, and includes primary care workers such as teachers, first responders, supermarket workers, and anyone 65 and older.
The CDC issued new guidelines on Tuesday that extended the suitability of the coronavirus vaccine to anyone 65 and older, as well as those with comorbid conditions, such as diabetes. About 53 million Americans age 65 and older and 110 million people between 16 and 64 with comorbid conditions are now eligible for the vaccine if every state adopts the guidelines, the CDC said.
“It does not mean that everyone in these groups will be immediately vaccinated as the stock is not where it should be,” the transition team wrote. “But it will mean that when vaccines become available, they will reach more people who need them.”
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