EXECUTIVE ACTIONS
February 4, 2021
Last week, The White House announced its pandemic plan of action to provide all Americans with easy access to vaccinations as soon as possible.
President Joseph Biden declared his commitment to administer 100 million vaccines in 100 days. Now, the average number of people being vaccinated daily in the US has reached 1.3 million.
To accelerate the availability of vaccines in the US, the Biden administration is also establishing community vaccination centers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is supplying $1 billion to support state vaccination sites.
Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith was appointed to lead the new White House COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force which was created to ensure that underserved communities have access to COVID-19 vaccinations and health care.
Last week, the Defense Production Act was invoked to increase the supply of vaccines across the US, and Pfizer and Moderna are planning to distribute 200 million vaccine doses by the end of March. Moreover, the President announced plans to purchase an additional 200 million vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna by summer which will be enough to vaccinate every American over the age of 16.
To help these efforts, any retired doctor or nurse whose license to administer vaccines has expired within the past five years is now permitted by the Department of Health and Human Services to vaccinate others for COVID-19, under a new amendment to the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act.
Finally, now is not a safe time to travel, according to new CDC Director Dr. Rachel Walensky, as case numbers across the country are still extremely high and, minimizing the spread of variants is crucial.