According to the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) the new Biden’s COVID-19 plan can be a good step for starting to rescue the country from the pandemic.
“President-Elect Biden’s plan to address COVID-19 is a strong start to rescue the country from the pandemic. It not only allocates billions of dollars to launch a sweeping national plan for vaccination and testing, it also invests in public health workers for outreach and contact tracing, addresses health disparities, protects residents of long term care facilities and workers in essential industries, and proposes billions for the administration of the vaccines,” – said Scott J. Knoer, executive vice president and CEO of the American Pharmacists Association
Biden’s COVID plan
President-elect Joe Biden pledged on January 15, to boost supplies of coronavirus vaccine and set up new vaccination sites to meet his goal of 100 million shots in 100 days. It’s part of a broader COVID strategy that also seeks to straighten out snags in testing and ensure minority communities are not left out. “Some wonder if we are reaching too far,” Biden said. “Let me be clear, I’m convinced we can get it done.”
Biden spoke a day after unveiling a $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan” to confront the virus and provide temporary support for a shaky economy. About $400 billion of the plan is focused on measures aimed at controlling the virus. Those range from mass vaccination centers to more sophisticated scientific analysis of new strains and squads of local health workers to trace the contacts of infected people.
“You have my word: We will manage the hell out of this operation,” Biden declared. He underscored a need for Congress to approve more money and for people to keep following basic precautions, such as wearing masks, avoiding gatherings and frequently washing their hands.
Throughout the plan, there’s a focus on ensuring that minority communities that have borne the brunt of the pandemic are not shortchanged on vaccines and treatments. As Biden said the key problem is – Vaccines are in too-short supply.
Current Situation
At this moment the vaccination process is in its full mode, as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The total number of people that received the 1st dose – 12,279,180, and total doses distributed 31,161,075
CDC recommends giving COVID-19 vaccine in phases, which may overlap:
- 1a: Healthcare personnel and Long-term care facility residents
- 1b: Frontline essential workers and People age 75 years and older
- 1c: People aged 65 through 74 years and People aged 16 through 64 years with underlying medical conditions and Other essential workers
“The incoming administration has stated that this is a race against time – and we agree. It is essential that this plan builds on utilizing the army of ready, willing and able pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and pharmacy interns in all practice settings to accelerate the vaccination of all Americans.
Approximately 400,000 pharmacy personnel have been trained for precisely this moment – and now is the time to mobilize them. We look forward to working with President-Elect Biden and his administration to maximize the use of pharmacists to defeat the pandemic, and to immunize and improve the health of our nation’s most vulnerable populations,” – reported Scott J. Knoer.
