Joe Biden Covid team mocks Trump plan while borrowing his playbook

Photographer: Mario Tama / Getty Images

President Joe Biden and his top advisers have mocked the Trump administration’s playbook for the distribution of coronavirus vaccines, but so far have made only modest changes to the plan, reaching their target rate of more than one million shots per day.

According to Biden, the distribution of vaccines is in a worse state than we expected. White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said a Trump administration plan “does not really exist.” Adviser Cedric Richmond said they “left no plan.” Xavier Becerra, Biden’s choice as health secretary, said it’s like taking over a plane in a nose dive.

But while Biden’s approach to the virus – honest warnings about the pandemic, masked mandates on federal property – is a reversal of Trump’s policy, the distribution of vaccines from his government so far looks little different from that of his predecessor. Before Biden was sworn in, vaccines were already being delivered at a pace to achieve his goal of 100 million doses in his first 100 days as president.

The Biden administration has said it will order new doses, but will do so by exercising options in contracts negotiated by the previous government, which it considers premature. They say they will use the Defense Production Act, which Trump has used repeatedly. Instead of a complete overhaul, they made course corrections and modest shifts. Data released by Johnson & Johnson will give hope that a third vaccine may hit the US market soon.

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Yet Biden’s ability to change direction is inherently limited. The sheer scale of the proliferation efforts will cost big changes, and it can fall back at the same time, even if it is temporary. Some aspects of the program do not offer much room for maneuver to begin with, while the most difficult parts have yet to come – and this entirely on Biden’s shoulders.

Biden’s efforts to shape the program were also undermined by Trump, who delayed the transition when he disputed the outcome of the election and refused to concede. Trump’s team said more than 300 transition meetings were held with health officials, although Biden officials said the exchange of information was limited to a few days before the inauguration.

Biased rhetoric

Some officials who led Trump’s efforts have objected to what they see as Biden’s team’s biased snippet, warning that it is hurting the morale among career staff working on vaccine vaccinations.

“The transition is going less well than my team and I had hoped,” said Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed, on the joint effort between the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense to develop and vaccines distributed in record time. Biden’s team dropped the name in hopes of boosting confidence in the shots, forcing Slaoui.

‘The team does not understand why the operation is criticized in the same way. It is so unfair and unfair, “said Slaoui. “If it were not for this surgery, we might not have as many vaccines as we do now.”

Among those who have pumped the brakes on allegations that Biden has not been handed anything over is Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading expert in infectious diseases who was put down by Trump and now serves as an adviser to Biden.

“We are definitely not starting from scratch,” Fauci said last week. “It assumes what’s going on, but magnifies it in a big way.” Biden, too, has acknowledged scientists and the Trump administration for setting up the vaccination program. “And the credit is absolutely due,” he said.

Biden’s approach

There are differences. Biden endorses federal community vaccination centers and mobile clinics mik na provide statements of a three-week stock preview. They have moved to increase the number of people available to administer it, although Trump officials have said the shortage of vaccines is not vaccinated. Biden undertook to give science the lead and made information public, in stark contrast to Trump, who turned down health advisers in favor of those who reinforced his own view.

Biden also insisted on addressing equality, saying that communities of color have been excessively hurt by the virus and cannot be left out of the response. Vaccinations can become more complicated as the months get longer, the supply grows and the easier access to groups – including health workers and long-term caregivers – is fully vaccinated.

But the biggest pieces of the proliferation effort remain unchanged, and it underscores the demands of some Biden advisers that they have inherited no plan. Many of the most stubborn bottlenecks do not stem from federal government decisions: companies simply cannot produce vaccines fast enough and stocks are scarce; even if the distribution is smooth, the administration of doses at local level is supported.

“What we see here is that they are marching through the playbook of Operation Warp Speed,” added Michael Pratt, a former health and human services official under Trump. “Something cannot be a sad failure at the same time and has already achieved the ‘ambitious goal’ you set. ‘

Almost every industrialized country has been plagued by vaccine delays. The European Union has moved to restrict the export of vaccines. According to Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker, the US administered 8.3 doses per 100 people, chasing the UK and Israel, but still better than Germany, Canada, France and the EU.

The war of words has escalated since the inauguration day. Slaoui said the Biden administration told him he would stay on as a consultant to read later in news reports that he had been asked to resign. He said he had asked Zients about the reports and that he should be thanked.

“I agreed to do so at their request,” Slaoui said in an interview. “There are two ways to look good. You look good because you do good things, or you look good because you make others look bad. I hope that the new administration does not end up in that game. ”

Biden has kept other key Trump staff in place, including General Gustave Perna, who is leading Slaoui along with Operation Warp Speed, and is focusing on distribution.

100-Day Promise

Biden asked questions about whether 100 million doses in 100 days – a target he set before vaccinations began – is too modest a goal. The U.S. reported more than one million daily doses for the first time on January 13, and the average daily average rose one million on January 23, Biden’s third full day in office. Two days later, Biden reviewed his goal, saying he thinks 1.5 million daily doses are feasible in the first 100 days. The US has only hit the mark once more: the inauguration day.

“It’s really wrong to say that there was no plan, because we are already reaching 1.3 million doses of weapons a day, which is more than the first goal President Biden had,” said Brett Giroir, who previous government’s efforts led to rush. testing.