President Joe Biden, accompanied by Vice President Kamala Harris, announced two major developments with regards to the COVID 19 vaccination.
First, by invoking the Federal Defense Production Act, the President announced that Johnson and Johnson have partnered with the drug manufacturer Merck to produce massive supplies of its vaccine "24/7."
This development should, according to President Biden, enable enough vaccines to be produced for the United States adult population by the end of May.
That is two months ahead of the original projection of the end of July.
In another major announcement, Mr. Biden, noting that twenty states have not prioritized administering Coronavirus Vaccinations to their educators, has more or less nationalized the vaccination distribution in those states.
Starting the week after next, all educators, school staff, and child care workers in those 20 states can receive vaccinations at pharmacies the federal government has directly supplied.
The President justified this step by stating that educators and parents were leery about reopening schools without staff being fully vaccinated.
Commenting on the Biden announcement as it pertains to Arizona schools, Morgan Dick, the Public Information Officer for the Arizona Department of Education relayed:
"Thankfully, teachers, school staff, and childcare workers were prioritized in Phase 1B in Arizona. The Superintendent (Kathy Hoffman) continues to urge all who are eligible and able to get the vaccine to get it."
These are tremendous steps forward from the Administration that should expedite the reopening of schools and society as a whole.
At the end of his announcement, Mr. Biden stressed that even with the increase in vaccination supplies and the likely acceleration of vaccine distribution, it is vital that people should still follow mitigation measures like wearing masks.
Someone should remind Texas Governor Greg Abbott of the need to remain patient with regards to mitigation measures.
Building on his failed leadership in the Texas blizzard and power/water outages from two weeks ago, the Texas Governor, ignoring health care specialist warnings, decided earlier today to remove the state's mask mandate and to fully reopen all businesses.
How many innocent people in Republican-controlled states have to suffer because their leaders are stupid science deniers who cater to the whims of their reactionary ignorant political base?
At least the people do not have to worry about that now with the current occupant of the White House.
No comments:
Post a Comment