President Joe Biden’s first full day in office on Thursday focused on implementing his national strategy to control the covid-19 pandemic and signing various executive orders and actions, including those mandating increased vaccination supplies and requiring travelers to who present proof of a negative COVID-19 test before traveling to the US.
“Our national strategy is comprehensive, it is based on science, not politics. It’s based on truth, not denial, and it’s detailed, ”Biden said, speaking from the White House. He said the 198-page plan is posted on WhiteHouse.gov.
Biden’s plan begins with a national vaccination campaign to meet the president’s goal of giving 100 million injections, which is enough to cover 50 million Americans with vaccines that require two doses, in their first 100 days in the year. position.
“This is Day 1,” Biden said.
Biden’s plan for covid-19 is far from Trump’s
Biden said the plan was developed with input from the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, among other advisers and experts. Fauci was at the event at the White House, along with Biden’s covid-19 czar, Jeff Zients.
Dr. Fauci: We didn’t start from scratch, but Biden’s plan is more ambitious 0:47Biden said the American public “would hear a lot more from Dr. Fauci, not from the president, but from the real experts and genuine scientists.”
Former President Donald Trump sidelined and undermined his own medical experts as the pandemic swept across the country.
“We will make sure they work free from political interference and make decisions based strictly on science and health care only, science and health only, not political consequences,” Biden said.
The day after he was sworn in, Biden signed at least 10 decrees, memoranda and directives focused on addressing the pandemic that, as of Thursday afternoon, has claimed the lives of more than 408,000 Americans and infected more than 24 million in the United States. United.
Biden signed decrees increasing supplies for vaccination, testing and personal protective equipment and another push for the development of therapies to treat COVID-19.
Biden stressed the need for Americans to wear face masks to stop the spread of the virus, saying masks are “even more important than vaccines.”
The president, who has long emphasized the importance of wearing masks, signed an executive order on his first day in office requiring masks in federal buildings and on federal land, and asked Americans to wear masks for their first 100 days. in office.