Covid-19 is mutating, its becoming more contagious than the virus that invaded the U.S. approximately one year ago.
Going to the grocery store with a mask on, which used to be low-risk, is becoming riskier and scientists are advising against it.
As cases and deaths increase rapidly, people are scared and upset.
They’re spending hours on websites and hotlines struggling unsuccessfully to get vaccine appointments.
President-elect Joe Biden’s vaccine distribution plan, which he announced Friday, doesn’t offer them much hope.
Biden said he’ll open 100 federal vaccine sites in school gyms, community centers, and stadiums the first month. That’s for the entire nation.
We’re in a war with a deadly disease. Biden’s plan is like fighting back with a pea shooter.
Almost as many Americans have died from COVID in the last year as were killed in all the years of World War II. It’s time to mount a D-Day scale response.
The US needs to vaccinate 1.8 million people a day to achieve herd immunity by July. That’s far more than Biden’s goal of 1 milllion shots a day. Dodger Stadium can host 12,000 vaccinations a day. So 150 stadium-size sites are needed, vaccinating round the clock.
To accommodate the elderly, many venues should be first come, first served. Asking seventy and eighty year olds to navigate complicated websites to make appointments is preposterously impractical.
To fight COVID, Biden also needs to defy the open border flank of his party and make it clear that caravans of Central American migrants will not be allowed into the US. Last week, a Biden transition official said it, but Biden himself needs to say it forcefully enough to be heard below the Rio Grande.
Air travelers to the U.S. have to show a negative COVID test before boarding, quarantine on arrival, and then get retested. Why should migrants be an exception?
Biden made fighting COVID the centerpiece of his campaign, yet even as he takes office, he’s short on details. The virus isn’t waiting.
"Ominous" is how Anthony Fauci describes the emerging strains. A newly identified variant in Brazil can reinfect people who have already had COVID. The UK is so fearful it blocked all flights from South America last week.
Meanwhile, a British strain that spreads fast because it causes more virus in the nose has invaded the US. Eighteen cases have been detected in New York.
It’s 50% to 70% more contagious than the original virus, and it will become the dominant strain by March, predicts the CDC. A highly infectious, home-grown US strain is also causing cases to surge, reports Southern Illinois University researchers. The enemy is growing fiercer.
Federal authorities, including Fauci and Biden’s new pick to head the CDC, Rochelle Walensky, predict they’ll have enough vaccine supply.
The federal government purchased 400 million doses in total of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in advance, enough to vaccinate 200 million people. Both vaccines require two shots. Johnson & Johnson will seek FDA authorization for its vaccine by March.
And a vaccine by AstraZeneca isn’t far behind.
Why then have only a tiny 3.7 percent of Americans received a shot?
Blame state and local pols who dithered instead of preparing mass vaccination sites before the first doses were shipped in mid-December.
Now, several states, including New York, are complaining about delivery logjams.
Another problem for Biden to solve.
Lives hinge on it.
Finally, Biden has to keep the focus on the U.S., not succumb to his party’s globalist sentiments. On Tuesday, Secretary of State nominee Anthony Blinken said the Biden administration would participate in a World Health Organization (WHO) project that calls on richer nations to regard vaccines as a global good, and share the supply with poorer nations.
It's a bad idea that would jeopardize the U.S.’s ability to reach herd immunity and return our lives to normal.
Biden needs to recognize the urgency of getting the U.S. vaccinated and act quickly.
Betsy McCaughey, Ph.D., is Chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Read more of Betsy McCaughey's reports — Here Now.