On his first full day in office as POTUS, Joe Biden is wasting no time when it comes to tackling the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic with equal parts urgency and communication, a seemingly standard combination that's been noticeably absent here in the States throughout the bulk of this uniquely depressing era.
Biden, who's made it abundantly clear this week that he and VP Kamala Harris have no intention of following the example of their predecessors, signed 10 more executive orders on Thursday aimed at bettering the national pandemic strategy.
These moves come at yet another pivotal moment for the country, with the current pandemic death count having recently surpassed 400,000.
In his inaugural address, Biden stressed the importance of pushing for greater unity nationwide in terms of a pandemic response plan.
"We are entering what may well be the toughest and deadliest period of the virus," the president said.
With a new administration now in the White House and promising a more effective coronavirus strategy, what can we expect in the weeks and months ahead? Should we give ourselves over to, dare it be said, cautious optimism at a modest volume?
Below, we break down a few key elements of what's currently known about Biden's immediate pandemic strategy.
In short, they really didn't.
"What we're inheriting [from the previous administration] is so much worse than we could have imagined," Biden's pandemic response coordinator Jeffrey Zients said during a conference call on Thursday, per the Hill.
A lack of planning from the previous administration, as well as transition hindrances and an insistence that testing and vaccine rollouts should be up to states, appear to have put the new Biden-Harris administration at a disadvantage in the early days of its tenure.
Per a 23-page document detailing the new administration’s national strategy for COVID-19 response and pandemic preparedness, however, the team is aiming to swiftly right the ship in a variety of ways.
Among the seven main goals outlined in the strategy document mentioned above is the establishment of a "safe, effective, [and] comprehensive" vaccination campaign.
Crucial in this aspect of the response strategy is the launch of a nationwide vaccinations public education program, which aims to build trust among Americans about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. This, of course, is of heightened importance in our current era thanks to the reckless rise of vaccine-related misinformation on social media.
The administration hopes to quicken the vaccination pace by, among other things, expanding manufacturing and buying more doses via the leveraging of contract authorities, including the Defense Production Act.
In the first 100 days of the Biden era, the administration is pushing to have administered at least 100 million shots. As is the case with other facets of the strategy, much is dependent on Congress passing an estimated $2 trillion pandemic proposal.
First of all, assuming you are in a possession of a functioning brain and don't subscribe to the shocking stupid anti-masker way of life, then you should be more than accustomed to wearing masks by now.
But unlike the previous administration, the Biden team is taking extended measures to make sure everyday Americans are receiving more definitive messaging on the importance (and benefits) of mask-wearing during a pandemic.
Biden is urging Americans to, in his words, "do what they do best" by stepping up and wearing masks. An executive order, Protecting the Federal Workplace and Requiring Mask-Wearing, has been issued that insists on compliance with CDC guidance on masks and other social distancing measures in federal buildings and on federal grounds by both federal employees and contractors.
Furthermore, mask-wearing will be required on planes, trains, and in other transportation scenarios in the U.S.
Thankfully, the new administration seems confident in this strategy's success despite entering the White House under starkly not ideal circumstances.
Zients, for example, has called the goals presented in the Biden strategy as both "ambitious and achievable." Also of comfort to brain-possessors is the vow from the administration that the pandemic response now and in the future will remain informed by science, data, and public health concerns instead of mere politics.
While one administration source was quoted in a recent CNN report as stating that the team was being forced to "build everything from scratch" due to the failures of the previous presidency, it's hard not to take at least a little solace in the speed at which Biden and company have started working to get the country on a path to recovery.
