President-elect Joe Biden has announced his COVID-19 vaccination plan, and it includes getting 100 million vaccinations done in 100 days. That may seem like a lot, but the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and everyone’s go-to expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has stated that this plan “is absolutely a doable thing,” according to Reuters. The mutual agreement between Fauci and the president-elect is a nice alternative to the tumultuous relationship that Fauci experienced when working with Donald Trump.
Back in November, at a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump’s feud with Fauci led him to suggest that he would fire the doctor after the election (via Stat). This was after several months of the Trump administration dismissing the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, despite a massive spike in cases (via Mass Live).
Now that Biden’s inauguration is around the corner, the U.S. is seeing a swift response from the incoming administration in how to tackle the pandemic. When announcing his plan, Biden said, “This is a time to set big goals, to pursue them with courage and conviction, because the health of the nation is literally at stake,” according to The Washington Post.
Ways Dr. Fauci thinks the United States can reach the 100-million vaccination goal
This isn’t the first time the government put a high vaccination goal in place. At the end of 2020, officials had hoped to distribute 20 million vaccinations, according to Reuters. However, with a slow pace and several unused doses going to waste, the U.S. failed to reach that number (via NBC News). Since then, people have become hesitant, but Biden has a plan.
Right now, the two leading COVID vaccines, Moderna and Pfizer, have been authorized in the United States, but Fauci said that the country is now “weeks away” from approving new vaccines, according to NBC News. With more approved vaccines, along with people continuing to wear their masks and practice social distancing, Fauci believes that the U.S. can improve their current vaccination pace.
Biden’s plan also includes using federal funds to open up more vaccination centers to be able to distribute more doses a day, according to CNN. Some cities have already started to see this happen. In Los Angeles, Dodger Stadium is expected to be one of the largest vaccination distribution site in the country, with a goal of vaccinating about 12,000 people per day (via ABC-7).
USA Today estimates that about 3.2 percent of the U.S. population has already received their first dose of the vaccine, so, hopefully, those numbers will only go up. With the determination of the incoming Biden administration and Dr. Fauci’s blessing, it seems 100 million vaccinations in 100 days is a real possibility.
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