Team Joe Biden Covid mocks Trump’s plan as he borrows his playbook

Photographer: Mario Tama / Getty Images

President Joe Biden and his top advisers have ridiculed the Trump administration’s game book for distributing coronavirus vaccines, but so far have only made modest changes to the plan, which is meeting its goal of more than a million. of shots a day.

Biden said the distribution of vaccines was in “worse condition than we expected.” White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said a Trump administration plan “didn’t really exist.” Adviser Cedric Richmond said “they left no plan.” Xavier Becerra, Biden’s election for health secretary, said it was like catching a plane in one nose.

But while Biden’s approach to the virus – sincere warnings about the pandemic, masked mandates on federal property – is an inversion of Trump’s policies, his administration’s distribution of vaccines so far seems little different from that of its predecessor. Before Biden was sworn in, vaccines were already being administered at a rate to reach his 100 million dose goal in his first 100 days as president.

The Biden administration has said they will order new doses, but will do so by exercising options in contracts negotiated by the previous administration, which considered it premature to do so. They say they will use the Defense Production Act, which Trump used repeatedly. More than a total overhaul, they have made course corrections and modest changes. Data released Friday by Johnson & Johnson will feed hopes that a third vaccine will soon hit the U.S. market.

The J&J single dose vaccine provides a strong shield against Covid

However, Biden’s ability to change direction abruptly is intrinsically limited. The sheer magnitude of distribution efforts would make all major changes costly and risk a setback, even temporarily. Some aspects of the program don’t offer much room to move, while the trickier parts have yet to arrive, and completely on Biden’s shoulders.

All of Biden’s efforts to shape the program were also thwarted by Trump, who delayed the transition by contesting election results and refused to concede. Trump’s team said more than 300 transitional briefings were held with health officials, though Biden officials have said the exchange of information was limited to a few days before the inauguration.

Partisan rhetoric

Some officials who led Trump’s efforts have opposed what they see as participants in Biden’s team, warning that it harms morale among career staff working on vaccine deployment.

“The transition is going less well than I and my team had expected,” said Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed, the joint effort between the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Advocacy to develop and distribute vaccines in record time. Biden’s team dropped the name, hoping to increase confidence in the shots, and forced Slaoui.

“The team doesn’t understand why the operation is being criticized as it is. It’s so unfair and unjustified,” Slaoui said. “If it weren’t for this operation, we may not have as many vaccines as we do now.”

Among those who have curbed claims that nothing was handed to Biden is Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert who was ousted by Trump and is now Biden’s adviser.

“We certainly don’t start from scratch,” Fauci said last week. “It’s taking what has happened, but expanding it in a big way.” Biden has also given credit to scientists and the Trump administration for launching the vaccine program. “And that credit is absolutely due,” he said.

Biden’s approach

There are differences. Biden is supporting community vaccination centers and federally run mobile clinics with the aim of provide states a supply preview for three weeks. They have decided to increase the number of people available to administer it, although Trump officials said the shortage lies in vaccines, not vaccinators. Biden pledged to let science lead the way and made the briefings public, in contrast to Trump, who sidelined health advisers in favor of those who reinforced his own opinion.

Biden has also insisted on addressing equity, saying colored communities have been disproportionately injured by the virus and cannot be left out in the response. Vaccinations could be complicated as the months go by, supply grows, and the most easily accessible groups (including health workers and long-term care residents) are fully vaccinated.

But the most important parts of the distribution effort remain unchanged, undermining the claims of some Biden advisers who did not inherit any plans. Many of the stubborn bottlenecks are not derived from federal government decisions: companies simply cannot produce vaccines quickly enough and supplies are scarce; even if the distribution works smoothly, a dose management is backed up locally.

“What we’re seeing here is that they’re marching through Operation Warp Speed’s game book,” added Michael Pratt, a former Trump Health and Human Services official. “Something cannot be a sad failure at the same time and you have already achieved the ‘ambitious goal’ you set.”

Almost all industrialized nations have been harassed by vaccination delays. The European Union has moved to restrict vaccine exports. The United States has administered 8.3 doses per 100 people, following the UK and Israel, while surpassing Germany, Canada, France and the EU as a whole, according to Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker.

The war of words has intensified since the day of the inauguration. Slaoui said the Biden administration had informed him that he would remain as a consultant, only to later read in news that he had been asked to resign. He said he asked Zients about the reports and told him he had to resign.

“I agreed to do it this way at his request,” Slaoui said in an interview. “There are two ways to look good, either you look good because you do fantastic things or you look good because you make others look bad. Jo hope that the new administration does not enter into this game “.

Biden has kept in place other key members of Trump, including General Gustave Perna, who co-directs Operation Warp Speed ​​alongside Slaoui, focusing on distribution.

Commitment of 100 days

Biden has wondered if 100 million doses in 100 days – a goal set before vaccinations began – is too modest a goal. The United States reported more than one million daily doses for the first time on January 13, and the rotating daily average exceeded one million on January 23, the third full day of Biden. Two days later, Biden reviewed his goal, saying he believes 1.5 million daily doses could be achieved in the first 100 days. The United States has only reached this mark so far once: the day of the inauguration.

“It’s really wrong to say there was no plan, as we’re already getting 1.3 million doses in arms a day, which exceeds President Biden’s first goal,” said Brett Giroir, who led the efforts of the previous administration to increase evidence.