Ezra Klein, a new columnist for the New York Times, writes that Biden’s plan to curb the pandemic is so blindingly obvious that it demonstrates how reckless and indifferent the Trump administration was. Trump thought that producing the vaccine would end the pandemic; but what matters most is getting people vaccinated, and for that he had no plan at all. When you read this, you may feel–as I did–thank God that someone is in charge who has ideas and plans about how to get people vaccinated. Someone is in charge. That’s a huge change.
He writes:
I wish I could tell you that the incoming Biden administration had a genius plan for combating Covid-19, thick with ideas no one else had thought of and strategies no one else had tried. But it doesn’t.
What it does have is the obvious plan for combating Covid-19, full of ideas many others have thought of and strategies it is appalling we haven’t yet tried. That it is possible for Joe Biden and his team to release a plan this straightforward is the most damning indictment of the Trump administration’s coronavirus response imaginable.
The Trump administration seemed to believe a vaccine would solve the coronavirus problem, freeing President Trump and his advisers of the pesky work of governance. But vaccines don’t save people; vaccinations do. And vaccinating more than 300 million people, at breakneck speed, is a challenge that only the federal government has the resources to meet. The Trump administration, in other words, had it backward. The development of the vaccines meant merely that the most logistically daunting phase of the crisis, in terms of the federal government’s role, could finally begin.
In the absence of a coordinated federal campaign, the job has fallen to overstretched, underresourced state and local governments, with predictably wan results. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, of the roughly 31 million doses that have been sent out, about 12 million have been used.
The good news is that the incoming Biden administration sees the situation clearly. “This will be one of the most challenging operational efforts ever undertaken by our country,” Biden said on Friday. “You have my word that we will manage the hell out of this operation.”
The person in charge of managing the hell out of the operation is Jeff Zients, who served as chief performance officer under President Barack Obama and led the rescue of HealthCare.gov. In a Saturday briefing with journalists, Zients broke the plan down into four buckets. Loosen the restrictions on who can get vaccinated (and when). Set up many more sites where vaccinations can take place. Mobilize more medical personnel to deliver the vaccinations. And use the might of the federal government to increase the vaccine supply by manufacturing whatever is needed, whenever it is needed, to accelerate the effort. “We’re going to throw the full resources and weight of the federal government behind this emergency,” Zients promised.
Most elements of the plan are surprising only because they are not already happening. Biden’s team members intend to use the Federal Emergency Management Agency to set up thousands of vaccination sites in gyms, sports stadiums and community centers, and to deploy mobile vaccination options to reach those who can’t travel or who live in remote places. They want to mobilize the National Guard to staff the effort and ensure that strapped states don’t have to bear the cost. They want to expand who can deliver the vaccine and call up retired medical personnel to aid the campaign. They want to launch a massive public education blitz, aimed at communities skeptical of the vaccine. They’re evaluating how to eke out more doses from the existing supply — there is, for instance, a particular syringe that will get you six doses out of a given quantity of Pfizer’s vaccine rather than five, and they are looking at whether the Defense Production Act could accelerate production of that particular syringe and other, similarly useful goods.
This plan merits, at least for me, a sense of fury: All of this should’ve been done months ago. These are the obvious ideas. We should be considering the hard, but perhaps necessary, decisions that could radically increase supply: using half-doses, for instance, or joining Britain in rapidly approving the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, even though the vaccine’s clinical trial was marred by shaky study design. I’m of the view that the situation is bad enough, and the costs of waiting large enough, that it might be worth moving forward on both counts, even with imperfect information. But those are difficult calls, with real downside risk. That there is so much low-hanging operational fruit for the Biden administration to focus on instead is a tragedy. It means people who could’ve been saved by simple competence and foresight will die instead.
Even now, the Trump administration’s poor planning and inconsistent communication fog the effort. In recent days, there have been reports that states aren’t receiving the vaccine allotments they’ve been promised. Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon tweeted that the leaders of Operation Warp Speed had directly confirmed to her that “states will not be receiving increased shipments of vaccines from the national stockpile next week, because there is no federal reserve of doses.” The mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, said, “the national supply simply isn’t coming.” When I asked Zients whether the federal government had less vaccine supply than has been promised, he wasn’t able to give an answer. “We’ll conduct a full evaluation when we’re in our seats on supply, but it’s hard for me to say more than that right now, given the lack of information sharing from the Trump administration.”
The incoming administration is also free from the delusion that the vaccines will solve the coronavirus crisis on their own. Even on the most optimistic timetable, it will take until well into the summer for America to reach herd immunity. In the meantime, new variants of the virus that spread even faster are taking hold. Ron Klain, Biden’s choice for chief of staff, warned that the coronavirus death toll in America will pass 500,000 by the end of February. And it will not end there. That is why if you look at the incoming administration’s coronavirus rescue package, most of the money is dedicated to the policies that will let us survive this next year.
Of this, $20 billion is directed at the vaccination effort. Another $50 billion is dedicated to standing up the national testing infrastructure that we should’ve had long ago, with an emphasis on deploying rapid testing for asymptomatic individuals who work in high-risk settings and setting up genomic surveillance so we can see when and how the virus is mutating. Then there’s $130 billion intended to retrofit schools so they can operate safely, even with the virus in circulation.
A year into this crisis, America still hasn’t built a national contact tracing apparatus to track and suppress outbreaks: Biden’s plan calls for hiring more than 100,000 public health workers for national contact tracing, local vaccine outreach and more. Congregant settings, like nursing homes and prisons, have been the sites of particularly vicious outbreaks, and Biden wants to create specialized forces that can be rapidly deployed to such sites to save lives. The list goes on.
None of this — none of it — is interesting or surprising. It’s obvious, and it should’ve been done long ago. Back in May, I wrotethat we were operating, in effect, without a president and without a national plan. It is January, and that remains true. But that will end on the day of Biden’s inauguration. And then the hard work can, finally, begin.
One of the biggest problems with vaccine production and distribution is the monopoly on who can make the approved vaccines. Biden can overrule that monopoly based on existing U.S. laws. Will he do it? Or would that threaten the profits of his pharma donors? https://preaprez.wordpress.com/2021/01/21/one-year-since-first-u-s-covid-case-discovered-unlock-the-vaccine-production-monopoly-joe-biden/
The other blindingly obvious thing that needs to be done to fight the pandemic – which everyone here was clamoring for when Trump was in charge – is shutting down the country, including schools. Yet Biden plans to re-open schools within his first 100 days – a timeframe that he himself admits less than 1/3 of the country will be vaccinated and that only partially. The infection and death rates are substantially higher now than they were when everyone here was insisting it’s much too dangerous to open schools.
And, of course, if we’re going to shut down the country, we need to make sure people have a way to survive. Biden promised $2,000 stimulus checks would go out “immediately” if Ossoff and Warnock were elected, which they were. That $2,000, however, is now $1,400 and “immediately” is “maybe March, more likely April”.
Finally, who can possibly still be opposed to Medicare for All during a pandemic – the system which has been proven to be the cheapest, most efficient and provides full, universal coverage regardless of means? But instead Biden is now touting a plan direct from the insurance lobby that doesn’t even include a public option.
Is Biden’s plan better than Trump’s? Yes, marginally. Is it what the country needs to combat the pandemic? Not even close.
Stimulus checks: https://www.mediaite.com/election-2020/a-betrayal-georgia-voters-enraged-after-democrats-promise-of-2000-checks-becomes-1400-under-biden-stimulus-plan/
Biden’s health plan: https://www.dailyposter.com/p/news-biden-lifts-health-care-plan
More on stimulus payments: https://www.yahoo.com/amphtml/lifestyle/1-400-stimulus-could-arrive-155405568.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90LmNvLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKvCt-bBNtvUiT9KgiejmGB2SkqfbjQYYLe4GLiv2RMQ2O4msfm8kiJt9MKjkOgTiSzO7zd4W6r53YFszMzIFWU4aS0Lp3Hr3HyCuNNMJvSvbZbs_F9k4qN-WXXN87x0TE1Ay502v_eaf2R50xNJsgyMIRm755mR2UO7kaSFVZSQ&__twitter_impression=true
Oh, Debbie Downer!!!…..can you please just give it a week. Just 1 week before you start bringing everyone down. We have had 4 years of waking up to a war zone and media circus created by a con man. Can you give Biden some time to help stop the deaths and the unemployment, please. Can you let the man free up the CDC and other health agencies that have been shut down for the past year. Just 1 week(!! ), so that people on this blog can feel some comfort and normalcy. If you can’t do that, you are no better than trump!
Here you go, Lisa, much better use of your valuable time:
Have you noticed that “debbie downer” always ignores everything good she claims she was so concerned about when she was saying that Biden was just like Trump?
I remember “debbie downer” raging about the environment and Climate Change and not demanding that all schools close indefinitely. In fact, I am not even sure she was an advocate of closing all schools. (I wonder if her kid’s private school is closed?)
But now that Biden has shut down the keystone pipeline, and rejoined the Paris Climate agreement, she found something else to bash him with. Now she is suddenly a “schools must all be closed” advocate??
And did she really just ask “Who could be opposed to Medicare for All?” Maybe all the people who voted for Trump, to start. Maybe all the people who voted for Republicans in the House and Senate, to start. Do you think our resident debbie downer believes that there is little difference between the Republican desire to privatize Medicare for seniors and end the Affordable Care Act, because that’s all “socialism”, and Biden’s plan?
We have got to stop condoning liars. The NYT spent 4 years trying to “understand” Trump voters and their need to embrace lies and hate. Our resident “debbie downer” is no different than all the other Trump normalizers – and she has been a Trump normalizer since before the 2016 election. Whether or not Trump normalizers are rabid fans who will violently take over the capitol to keep Trump in power, or whether the Trump normalizers claim to be leftists who just want to prevent democrats from having power, they embrace lies.
Biden has been in office two days and he has already done things “debbie downer” claimed she cared about. But all she can focus on is what he hasn’t yet given her that she demands as her right regardless of whether the majority of Americans want exactly what she wants.
I voted for Biden and I think reopening schools is a disaster waiting to happen. Of course, I live on Utah, where we’ve been open all along, and the spread is ludicrously high. The media got all excited on Wednesday because Utah’s positivity rate was…19%!!!! We haven’t been below a 20% positive rate since October
Good think Biden’s plan is simple.
Otherwise, Ezra Klein would probably not be able to understand it.
Hahahahahahaha! Made my day, SomeDAM.
And … never forget that the dumpster works for Putin and still does.
How refreshing to have someone competent and sincere in office. Feel free to blast me for my naivete but I am so relieved to not have to wake up to the latest Trump vomitus.
Yep…..did trump ever sleep? He Tweeted late into the night so that every day started off with a negative tone. I know there is still a lot that’s wrong, but I feel relieved and I have hope again.
XLV did everything to manage the image, nothing to deal with the reality.
My bet: Trump never worked a day in the past four years. He sat and watched TV, tweeted, played golf, had lunch with Pence or Pompeo.
He is one lazy man. He never had any interest in briefings on any subject. No interest in governing, only in power and the trappings of power.
The image of a cruel, incompetent, racist fool?
Yes, Trump managed that quite well.
Fox News continues to traffic in lies and distortions. What a surprise, huh? After financial disclosures by The Trump Organization showing that revenues from its businesses declined, on average, by almost 40 percent last year, Fox ran this headline: “Trump golf business resilient during coronavirus pandemic.”
This also followed upon the PGA cancelling plans to hold its 2022 PGA Championship from Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, NJ, which was one of a number high-profile defections from Trump by US businesses after the incitement by Trump of the deadly Capitol insurrection. Said the PGA’s president, Jim Richerson, “It has become clear that conducting the PGA Championship at Trump Bedminster would be detrimental to the PGA of America brand.”
I read that Trump is considering starting his own political party. I sincerely wish he would do it so we can divide and conquer the right wing.
This would be awesome.
This would present a dilemma to the Ted Cruzes and Governor DeSatans, wouldn’t it? LOL.
What should Trump call his new political party?
The Proud Boys Party?
The Jailhouse Gang?
The White Supremacy Party?
Ideas?
Trump could resurrect the Know Nothing Party
The Know Nothing movement, formally known as the Native American Party (then meaning descendants of colonists or settlers, rather than indigenous Americans) before 1855 and the American Party after 1855, was a nativist political party and movement in the United States…” — from wikipedia
That is actually a perfect name for the Trump party: the Know Nothing Party.
Not only because it has a historical meaning (nativism, hatred of immigrants), but because of its literal meaning. Know Nothing.
Unfortunately, it would probably not divide the right wing to any significant degree, since almost all the Republicans would probably just switch to the Trumpty Dumpty Party (Also known as the Bull Manure Party)
The Impeachment Party might be apt too.
“Four or Bust” could be Trump’s campaign motto.
Trump always encouraged thuggish behavior. https://www.vox.com/21506029/trump-violence-tweets-racist-hate-speech
Feb 1, 2016 “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Just knock the hell out of them.”
Pretty sure that should put you in jail.
March 9, 2016: A 78-year-old white male Trump supporter punched a Black male protester being escorted out of a Trump campaign rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The Trump supporter was recorded on video saying he enjoyed “knocking the hell out of that big mouth” and “Yes, he deserved it. The next time we see him, we might have to kill him.” He was arrested and charged with assault a day later, though he attacked the protester directly in front of law enforcement officials.
Instead, at the time, law enforcement officials tackled the protester to the ground after he had been punched in the face.
So now Trump is a naked barbarian, the PGA sees it and doesn’t want their event turned into a Scorsese film
Well said!
A superb article, Ted. Thanks for sharing it.
A little something for the upcoming Senate hearings.
Curious to hear what the teachers here think about this question: Should public schools reopen in September (note that I’m writing off the rest of this year in NYC, where I live) even though K-12 students will not have been vaccinated against Covid? Should masks and distancing continue to required?
FLERP,
When I got the vaccine, the nurse said that we should continue to wear masks and practice social distancing.
And there is no vaccine approved for children, and I don’t think one is imminent. So I wonder if the teachers here believe that school should continue to operate remotely not only for the rest of this school year, but also next fall.
Hate to tell you FLERP, many of us are in schools operating as if there wasn’t a pandemic, except for wearing masks. It has NOT been a good experience
Do you think schools should be remote-only until a vaccine has been approved for children and all children attending school are vaccinated?
Trolling
To dangle bait
And hope for bite
A common trait
In trolling rite
Ah, so trolls are simply angry fishermen.
troll (v): fish by trailing a baited line along behind a boat.
gerund or present participle: trolling
“we trolled for
mackerelteachers”I didn’t know this meaning of troll. I thought it just came from Scandinavian tales.
I believe fishing was what the Scanda Navyans did in their free time when they weren’t swabbing the deck and cleaning the guns.
But I could be wrong. Have been before — once or twice.
“This will be one of the most challenging operational efforts ever undertaken by our country,” Biden said on Friday. “You have my word that we will manage the hell out of this operation.”
The only other challenging operational effort I can think of that is equal to or was more daunting was when FDR was president. FDR was behind the U.S. mobilizing the country’s industrial sector to produce weapons to fight WWII after Pearl Harbor was bombed.
That’s the thing about good ideas. They seem so simple when enunciated.
Joe Jersey on the transition:
The end of an error
Perhaps vaccination should be mandated?
First of all, Arizona has been seeing an “exponential increase” in children being hospitalized w/Covid; “biggest group 8, 9, 10-year-olds…some teenagers, as well…Banner Health says statewide hospitalizations in those 0-18-years-old have been on the rise since October.”
Of course, the Chicago Teachers Union is “in the strike zone.” They have been out in the streets. Some who were to have reported back to in-person learning & continued remote were locked out of their accounts by CPS. (“Some charters, teachers agree on reopening plans…” one charter school is still bargaining while continuing to teach remotely. They were asked to go back to the classroom in August.”)
CPS teachers insist that they are not having a work stoppage–those who have not been locked out continue to teach remotely. “The 25K rank-&-file members of the CTU are voting through Saturday night on a resolution to continue working from home next week because of health concerns…CPS officials have said working from home is no longer an option for about 13,800 educators.” (3,800 were ordered to return in early January; the rest, Monday, 1/25.)
The vaccine won’t be administered (a supply of vaccine distributed to CPS) to Chicago Teachers until mid-February, although “educators in IL will become eligible for their Covid-19 shots on Monday, according to the state’s vaccination plan, & could receive one at any point going forward from their private health care provider or a local pharmacy.”
At this point, it can be somewhat difficult to make an appointment to get vaccinated.