In a Thursday afternoon address, President Joe Biden announced that the White House has released an extensive 190-page plan on how it intends to confront the coronavirus pandemic, including its plan to manage the distribution of vaccines to the states.  Our goal, Biden says, “is to regain public trust.”

Available on the White House website, the plan includes establishing liaisons from each US state and territory to work as a point person with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.  The previous administration left the acquisition and distribution of vaccines up to the individual states, which often pitted states against one another.

Biden calls for a “war-time undertaking” while invoking the Defense Protection Act to increase the production of vaccine, distribute it to communities, and provide personnel to assist with inoculations.  Biden’s plan would also form a test distribution panel that would identify areas in need of testing kits so that they can advance reopening schools and businesses safely. 

Biden vowed that medical and public health decisions would be made by experts in those fields, “free from political interference and they make decisions based on medicine and science alone,” Biden said, noting that the public will hear more from Dr. Anthony Fauci, who had been muzzled by the previous administration because he was more popular and trusted than the ex-president.  Biden appointed Fauci to be the liaison to the World Health Organization’s coronavirus task force.

Biden then signed a series of COVID related Executive Orders to improve the vaccine supply chain; keep workers safe; ensure an equitable response for people of difference races and incomes; testing and quarantining people traveling to and within the US; set up the pandemic testing board; establish the safe schools initiative; track COVID data; paying for National Guard and FEMA support through federal funds; expand access to treatment and care for COVID patients; and direct a global response to the pandemic.