Saturday, January 16, 2021
"Are at war with this virus"
Biden announces thousands of new vaccination centers
The US is hardest hit by the corona pandemic. The future US President Biden wants to get the situation under control with a bundle of measures. The vaccination campaign in particular is to be accelerated. For this purpose, Biden wants to set up more vaccination centers and also involve the pharmacies.
In light of the dramatic spread of the corona virus in the United States, future US President Joe Biden wants to significantly accelerate the pace of corona vaccinations in the country. In Wilmington, Delaware, Biden announced a series of campaigns aimed at overcoming existing problems and delays in the US vaccination campaign.
Among other things, thousands of new vaccination centers are to be built across the country. The US civil protection agency Fema should help with the construction. Mobile vaccination stations are to be sent to remote areas. Biden also wants to use the pharmacies in the country to also administer vaccinations. In addition, the democrat wants to ensure that other population groups are already vaccinated and the current prioritization is relaxed.
Worldwide, the number of people who have died after a corona infection has only just passed the two million mark. More than 93 million infections have been reported around the globe so far. In absolute terms, the United States is the country hardest hit by the pandemic. In the United States, with a population of around 330 million, more than 23 million infections with the virus have been registered so far. More than 390,000 people have already died from the virus.
The number of deaths reported within a day broke new records – last Tuesday it was more than 4,400. Biden called the numbers devastating. "We are still in a very dark winter," he warned. "We're at war with this virus." Among other things, the Democrat has declared a goal that at least 100 million vaccine doses be administered within the first 100 days after taking office. He will be sworn in as president next Wednesday.
So far, vaccinations in the USA are making slow progress. According to the US government on Friday, more than 30 million vaccine doses have been distributed in the country to date. According to a list by the "New York Times", however, only a good twelve million vaccine doses have so far been administered.
Criticism of vaccine distribution
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Oregon State Governor Kate Brown complained on Friday about the vaccine distribution. De Blasio wrote on Twitter that New York will run out of vaccines in the coming week, while other parts of the country have unused vaccine doses. Biden also said: "There are tens of millions of vaccine doses left unused in freezers while people who want and need the vaccine cannot get it." That has to change urgently.
Biden's future government wants to encourage all states to offer vaccinations faster to larger populations. In the USA, similar to Germany, a list of priorities has been drawn up so that particularly vulnerable groups are vaccinated first. However, Biden complained that the implementation was too strict and confusing. He advocated not only giving priority to health care workers, residents and employees in nursing homes, but also offering large numbers of vaccinations for other high-risk professional groups and citizens over 65 years of age. The democrat also announced, among other things, that his government wanted to launch a large-scale awareness campaign to build trust in the vaccines among the population. So far, there has been great skepticism here.
Meanwhile, the latest warning from the US health authority CDC is also of concern, according to which the corona mutation, which was first discovered in Great Britain and is probably much more contagious, could soon be more common in the United States than the original variant. "The predicted development of this variant in the US shows rapid growth in early 2021 and will become the predominant variant in March," said the CDC. This could further strain the medical infrastructure in the United States.
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