President Biden released his COVID war plan Thursday, promising “help is on the way.” Alas, it’s far from clear the strategy will meet the challenge.
The 198-page plan vows to “spare no effort to ensure Americans can get vaccinated quickly, effectively and equitably.” Washington will spur manufacturers to boost vaccine production, via the Defense Production Act, and target “supply shortfalls.” The new prez signed several executive orders to launch the program.
That’s all great, but Biden’s goal of 100 million vaccines in 100 days, or 1 million a day, as Betsy McCaughey noted Thursday, won’t create herd immunity by July. For that, the nation needs to vaccinate at least 1.8 million people daily. And reaching even 1 million a day is far from certain.
When a reporter pointed out that 1 million is only 10 percent higher than the current number of daily doses, Biden bristled with his typical “Gimme a break, man.” Is the media honeymoon already over? One can only hope.
The plan also puts a high priority on ensuring “equity, including across racial, ethnic and rural/urban lines.” How about just ensuring everyone gets vaxxed?
Shots meant for higher-priority recipients can’t be allowed to go to waste if those folks aren’t available but should go instead to anyone. That’s the practice in Israel, where nearly a quarter of the population has had at least one dose — compared with only about 4 percent of Americans.
Nor is it a good sign that Biden aides are already rolling out excuses and blaming President Donald Trump’s folks: “What we’re inheriting is so much worse than we could have imagined,” whined new White House COVID coordinator Jeff Zients.
Meanwhile, Mayor Bill de Blasio warned again Thursday of “a profound shortage” of the vaccine in the city. “We continue to have to cancel appointments rather than book more appointments,” he said.
And while he claimed the city’s vaccination program is “firing on all cylinders,” a column by Allan Ripp in Thursday’s Post painted a truly nightmarish picture of what it’s really like to try to get jabbed here.
Yes, getting the vaccine into people’s arms fast is an enormous challenge. But countries like Israel have done it. With 4,000 Americans dying daily, leaders like Biden, de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo need to step up fast — and meet that challenge.