Officials in Biden’s incoming government urged the country to continue to suffer in the days following the inauguration, with the president-elect taking control of a struggling economy in less than three days and a rising coronavirus had an outbreak.
Ron Klain, electing president of the White House, Joseph R. Biden Jr., had a serious prediction for the course of the coronavirus outbreak in the first weeks of the new government, predicting that half a million Americans to the coronavirus by the end of February. The current toll is approximately 400,000.
“The virus is going to get worse before it gets better,” he said. Klain said in an appearance on CNN’s ‘State of the Union’. ‘People who contract the virus today will start getting sick next month. This will increase the death toll at the end of February, even in March. It will take a while to stop it. ‘
Average daily deaths in the US due to the virus have risen to over 3,000, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has sounded the alarm about a rapidly spreading, much more contagious variant of the coronavirus that officials plan to become the dominant source of infection in the country by March, potentially another disruptive boom in cases will incite. and deaths.
Mr. Klain commented in the disappointment of the states that there is no reserve of additional vaccines that the Trump administration has promised to release, that his team inherits a big mess “that the production and distribution of vaccines.
“But we have a plan to fix it,” he said. Klain said, referring to a federal vaccination campaign that Mr. Biden announced Friday. “We think there are things we can do to speed up the delivery of the vaccine.”
Administration officials last week called on the states to relax the eligibility criteria and to vaccinate all Americans 65 and older. Some states, including New York, have joined quickly and this has led to an increase in interest – and confusion – as thousands of eligible people have sought appointments to be vaccinated.
But there was no stock of additional vaccine doses waiting to be distributed in the countries, but these were just the promises, many of which had to be given as second doses to people who had already received their first doses.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Sunday that he also tried to sort out the confusion about how many doses the federal government keeps and where they are headed.
“I think there was just a misunderstanding,” said Dr. Fauci said on NBC’s “Meet the Press”. “When doses were released, an equal amount was withheld to make sure there were errors in the supply stream that the people who received their first doses would clearly get their second doses,” he said.
After it was clear that the production of the vaccines would be reliable, he added: ‘The decision was made, instead of just giving enough for the first dose and keeping the second dose, that once they had the doses available , would give it, because now they would have confidence that they would get the next amount. ”
Brian Deese, the incoming head of the National Economic Council, also stressed the urgent need to adopt a $ 1.9 billion stimulus plan announced by the incoming Biden government last week to help with the recovery effort, citing data indicating rising unemployment and that more Americans are starving.
“The truth is, we are in a very difficult moment,” he said. Deese said in an appearance on ‘Fox News Sunday’. “We have an acute economic crisis and a human crisis, and we need definite action.”