President Biden on Thursday unveiled his COVID war plan, promising “help is on the way.” Unfortunately, it is far from clear that the strategy will meet the challenge.
The 198-page plan promises to “spare no effort to ensure that Americans can be vaccinated quickly, effectively and fairly.” Washington will encourage manufacturers to promote vaccine production through the Defense Production Act and target a supply shortage. The new prez has signed several executive orders to launch the program.
That’s all well and good, but Biden’s goal of getting 100 million vaccines in 100 days, or 1 million a day, as Betsy McCaughey remarked on Thursday, will not create herd immunity by July. For that, the country must at least vaccinate 1.8 million people daily. And reaching even 1 million a day is far from certain.
When a reporter pointed out that 1 million is only 10 percent higher than the current number of daily doses, Biden filled his typical ‘Gimme a break, man’. Is the media honeymoon over? One can only hope.
The plan also places a high priority on ensuring “equity, including racial, ethnic and rural / urban boundaries.” How about just making sure everyone grows?
Shots intended for recipients with a higher priority cannot be allowed to be wasted if the people are not available but rather have to go to someone. This is the practice in Israel, where nearly a quarter of the population had at least one dose – compared to only about 4 percent of Americans.
It’s also not a good sign that Biden’s assistants are already making excuses and blaming President Donald Trump’s people: “What we inherit is so much worse than we could have imagined,” whines Jeff Zients, new White House coordinator .
Meanwhile, Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday again warned of a serious shortage of the vaccine in the city. “We need to continue to cancel appointments rather than book more appointments,” he said.
And while he claims that the city’s vaccination program ‘shoots on all cylinders’, a column by Allan Ripp in Thursday’s Post paints a true nightmare picture of what it’s really like to try to strike here.
Yes, to get the vaccine in people’s arms quickly is a huge challenge. But countries like Israel have done it. With 4,000 Americans dying daily, leaders such as Biden, de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo must act quickly – and meet the challenge.