The Biden administration, under fire to show progress in controlling the spread of COVID-19, is tracking progress of the vaccine rollout based on the number of days since inauguration, according to a document prepared by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The nine-page senior leadership letter obtained by Yahoo News follows the country’s fight against the pandemic, with a prominent countdown of the number of days since Biden became president. The document, dated Jan. 29, appears to be a modification of a previous daily briefing by FEMA’s senior leadership during the Trump administration, which focused primarily on the progression of the disease.
The Biden administration seems eager to quantify vaccine progress, especially as some experts have criticized the response to the pandemic, saying that Biden’s original plan to deliver 100 million doses of vaccine in 100 days was not ambitious. enough, as the US had already undertaken a similar trajectory prior to the appointment of the new president. Last week, however, the White House raised the target to 1.5 million per day, and the country is nearing that target, with 1.35 million doses delivered per day for the past week.
January was the deadliest month of the pandemic on record in the US, with more than 90,000 deaths. According to federal tracking, the seven-day average leading to Jan. 29 was worse than the week before, and 19 states remain in the “ red zone, ” meaning a positivity rate of 10.1 percent or higher, according to the FEMA document. There were 125,699 COVID-19 hospitalizations (a decrease from the previous week) and ICU bed use was just over 70 percent, a slight increase from the previous week.
FEMA has also established a Civil Rights Advisory Group, under its senior management mandate, with the stated intent to “help ensure equality in the allocation of scarce resources, including any additional future vaccine allocations.” Minority communities have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 infections and deaths, and the early proliferation of vaccines has also revealed racial inequalities.
The FEMA document also describes how emergency response is provided to states, including the use of medical personnel and personal protective equipment. It states that the agency “has already committed $ 1 billion to states, territories, tribes and Washington, DC for vaccination sites,” adding that it “expects that number to rise in the coming days.”
The document is in line with the comments made by the White House’s COVID task force last week and its plan to maintain 10 million vaccine allocations per week for four to five weeks. So far, only two states – Alaska and West Virginia – have administered more than 11,000 doses per 100,000 residents, while the vast majority of states have administered 6,000 or less. West Virginia, in particular, has been hailed as a success story, in part because of its reliance on independent drugstores versus major national chains to administer the vaccine.
Biden’s proposed $ 1.9 trillion recovery bill would raise $ 160 billion for national vaccination and testing efforts and $ 350 billion for state and local governments.
“It’s going to be a logistical challenge that will surpass anything we’ve ever tried in this country, but I think we can,” Biden said last week. “I am confident that we will be well on our way to herd immunity by the summer. I feel good about where we’re going, and I think we can get it done. “
• Jana Winter contributed to the reporting of this story.
Read the full document:
Vaccine Tracker by Yahoo News on Scribd
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Originally published