Too modest? Criticism of Biden’s vaccine target

The U.S. began distributing more than a million vaccines every day over the past weekend, even before it could really be credited to the new administration. According to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 21.8 million Americans received the first dose of the vaccine yesterday. , About 6% of the population.The second dose was received by 3.2 million Americans.

The Trump administration, it will be recalled, has come under sharp criticism for the pace at which the vaccine campaign was conducted in its early stages, but U.S. commentators estimate that Trump has set himself a trap by announcing in advance a rather ambitious target of 20 million vaccines by the end of December. In reaching the required pace, mainly due to the difficulty of local authorities in finding effective ways to distribute the vaccines they received from the federal government, and when Biden announced his target on December 8 he was indeed described in the American media as ambitious.

In the last few weeks of Trump’s tenure, however, his administration has managed to significantly accelerate the pace of vaccinations, and when Biden took office last Wednesday, the average daily was about 900,000 each day. Experts now believe he is required to set a target of at least 2 million vaccines each day, and possibly even more. At the current rate of one million vaccines a day, they warn, reaching “herd immunity” will only come in the fall months and perhaps even beyond, next year. Another concern they raise is that too slow a rate of vaccinations will give the virus more time to develop new mutations, some of which – particularly the British strain spreading across the US – have already accelerated morbidity.

It is estimated that in order to reach herd immunity, and with it a return to a “certain degree of routine” as stated by Dr. Anthony Pauchi, the administration’s chief expert on infectious diseases, it will be necessary to vaccinate between 70% and 80% of the population The Washington Post reported that according to a model compiled by Biden’s transition team before the change of government, 100 million shots means a full two-dose vaccine for about 33 million Americans, and 67 million will receive at least partial protection with just one dose.

“I like that he set a goal, but a million vaccines a day?” Dr. Paul Opit, director of the Vaccine Educational Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told the New York Times. “I think we can do more,” he added. We will have to do more if we want to control this virus by the summer. “

While the American media highlights the possibility that some mishap along the way will lead to a slowdown in the rate of vaccines, they also point out that at least for now, Biden’s target does not take advantage of all the vaccines Pfizer and Moderna promise to provide by the end of March. In the coming weeks, the vaccine of a third company, Johnson & Johnson, which requires only one dose, is also expected to be approved, and if it is given, it will also be able to provide millions of doses by the beginning of April.

In fact, the current rate of one million doses a day was reached even before the United States fully utilized all the doses already provided by the federal government, more than 40 million. The Biden administration has announced its intention to expand the vaccination campaign with 100 federal centers to help distribute the vaccines. In areas that are having a hard time doing this, as well as expanding the collaboration with the pharma chains that will distribute them in their own centers.

Despite this, Biden is currently insisting on continuing to set a target of 100 million vaccines within 100 days, and political commentators believe this may be due to a desire to avoid the same trap of expectations that the Trump administration has set for itself. “Biden’s team wants to do the complete opposite of what Trump did,” CNN political commentator Harry Anten wrote. “They do not want to set a threshold that is easily enough to be proven unattainable. They want a threshold that can be achieved and perhaps even crossed.”

Either way, when asked on Thursday by a White House reporter if his goal is not ambitious enough, Biden sounded a little annoyed at the very question. “When I announced it, you all claimed it was impossible. Do me a favor, man. It’s a good start.” CNN, by the way, noted that Biden’s claim is incorrect. Although there were those who said that this was an ambitious goal, but in the American news network emphasized that already in the days following the announcement of the goal, experts and commentators emphasized that this goal is achievable.

Although the Biden administration continues to call the goal “ambitious”, senior officials yesterday tried to emphasize that this is only an initial goal, which the administration intends not only to realize, but also to cross. White House Chief of Staff Ron Klein said in an interview with NBC yesterday: “One hundred million shots is an ambitious and daring goal, but we will have to continue after that. It is our first goal, it is not the last goal, it is not the end point, it is just a measure that the people The American will be able to use it to measure how we are progressing. ”

Although Klein admitted that the Trump administration left behind a base on which Biden could “build,” he argued that a plan for widespread distribution of the vaccine “did not really exist” when Biden entered the White House last week. “We need more vaccines, we need more warehouses, we need more vaccine centers. And in the Biden administration, we intend to treat all three.”

Dr. Pauchi, who has been appointed by Baiden to serve as its chief medical adviser, said yesterday that the goal of 100 million vaccines in 100 days is challenging – but “reasonable”. In an interview with CBS, Pauchi added: “You always want to do More than the goal you set. It’s going to be the floor, not the ceiling. “Pauchi noted that in the early stages of the vaccination campaign it is easier to reach a higher number of vaccinated, as these stages focus on nursing homes and hospitals. In more advanced stages, he noted, less accessible populations will need to be reached. “It will not be easy to do that,” he said. “We are storing as many people as possible as quickly as possible.”

To expand the testing operation Biden included in the huge aid package that offered $ 20 billion for the establishment of additional immunization centers. The $ 1.9 billion aid package also includes funding for the employment of another 100,000 health workers who, among other things, will work to allay many Americans’ concerns about vaccines.

If he fails to reach a compromise, Biden will still be able to approve certain parts of his plan with the help of a special Senate procedure that allows, with the help of budget-related legislation, to circumvent the rule requiring a privileged majority of 60 senators to prevent filibuster. Republicans used the same method to pass in 2017 Trump’s tax cuts. In the Senate, it will be recalled, there is now a 50-50 draw between Democrats and Republicans, and Vice President Kamla Harris’ vote breaks the tie. Senator Bernie Sanders, who is expected to serve as chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, has expressed support for such a move. “We cannot wait weeks and weeks and months and months to move forward,” he said yesterday. “We must act now. That is what the American people want. ”

Meanwhile, tonight it was reported that Biden is already expected to revoke one of Trump’s last orders in office, in which the former president lifted the restriction on the entry of foreigners from Britain, most of Europe and Brazil. Biden’s staff announced that it intends to reverse these traffic restrictions immediately after the Trump administration announces its intention to remove them. According to reports in the American media, Biden is also expected to ban the entry of foreigners from South Africa, in the shadow of the fear of the new strain of the virus discovered there. Last week, Biden also declared an isolation obligation for anyone entering the United States.

Meanwhile, the virus continues to spread rapidly across the United States, with the number of infected people crossing the 25 million mark yesterday. In recent days, health authorities have reported a slight drop in the rate of infection, with new infection numbers falling below 200,000 every day, although still These are huge numbers.

In the United States, more than 417,000 corona patients have died so far, and it is estimated that this dismal number will exceed 500,000 as early as next month. In the last 25 days alone, 70,000 people have died in the United States from the complications of the virus. Although the number of patients has decreased in recent days, and now stands at less than 120,000 (for the first time since the end of December), experts fear a resurgence in light of the spread of new corona strains.