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Biden Aims to Administer 100 Million Vaccine Doses in the First 100 Days
The goal is ambitious but desperately needed
Published in
3 min readJan 16, 2021
During a speech today, President-elect Joe Biden made a series of announcements about his administration’s plans to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and to speed up vaccine distribution, with the goal of delivering 100 million doses during his first 100 days in office.
Here are the five initiatives he laid out in order to achieve the ambitious target:
- Expand eligibility for the Covid-19 vaccine to include adults aged 65 and older as well as essential workers outside of the health care industry, such as teachers and grocery store workers. Biden acknowledged that there currently aren’t enough doses available to vaccinate all Americans in this group. Instead, the goal is the faster deployment of the millions of doses that are available but still sitting in freezers. A similar announcement was made earlier this week by the Department of Health and Human Services.
- Set up thousands of community vaccination centers with the help of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A focus will be on equity, and locations will be prioritized in minority and rural communities. These centers will be staffed by first responders, military medical personnel, retired doctors, and others who will be trained in vaccine administration. Biden says states will be reimbursed for many of the costs associated with these centers, including personnel and supplies.
- Work with pharmacies, both nationwide chains and local independent stores, to get the vaccine into as many arms as quickly as possible. The goal will be an easy appointment system to prevent lines and wait times.
- Ramp up vaccine supply using government resources. Biden will use the Defense Production Act to work with industry to accelerate the manufacturing of materials needed to administer the vaccine. The administration also plans to release vaccine doses as soon as they become available, keeping only a small number in reserve. However, Biden says they are not deviating from the Food and Drug Administration’s recommended dosing schedule that people receive a second shot three to four weeks after the first. The Trump administration announced a similar strategy this week…
