Part of President Biden's State of the Union speech last night was dedicated to the White House's plan on COVID-19 moving forward, and that plan, unlike the Trump "plan" of "deal with it" is "we now have the weapons to fight the virus and we're going to use them".
The White House on Wednesday unveiled a plan to move the nation to a new stage of the pandemic where Covid-19 "does not disrupt our daily lives," while also preparing the nation for any new variants that may emerge.
The National Covid-19 Preparedness Plan, which will require additional funding from Congress, is focused on spending on treatments for Covid-19, preparing for new variants, keeping schools and businesses open and continuing the effort to vaccinate the nation and the world.
"Vaccines, treatments, tests, masks -- these tools are how we continue to protect people and enable us to move forward safely and get back to our more normal routines. Going out to eat at a restaurant, taking that trip that's been long delayed, arranging a play date for your kids, attending a sports game, a movie or a concert again," White House Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters at a White House briefing.
A major new part of the plan includes a new "Test to Treat" initiative that President Joe Biden announced during his State of the Union address Tuesday night. He said Americans would be able to get tested for Covid-19 at a pharmacy and receive free antiviral pills "on the spot" if they test positive.
Zients said hundreds of these "One-Stop Test to Treat" locations will open across the country this month. These sites will be at pharmacy-based clinics, community health centers, long-term care facilities and US Department of Veterans Affairs facilities across the country.
Pfizer's antiviral pill, Paxlovid, has been shown to significantly reduce hospitalizations and severe illness and was authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration last year. Upon its authorization, Biden announced a purchase of 10 million courses. The President has since said the federal government will double its order from 10 million to 20 million treatment courses.
Zients said Americans who have already received free at-home Covid-19 tests that they ordered through COVIDtests.gov will be able to place a second order starting next week. He said the administration will continue to make hundreds of millions of high-quality masks available to Americans at pharmacies, grocery stores and community health centers across the country.
The administration will launch a website later this month, Zients said, to help Americans locate vaccines and masks at convenient locations.
"This plan lays out the roadmap to help us fight Covid-19 in the future as we move America from crisis to a time when Covid-19 does not disrupt our daily lives and is something we prevent, protect against and treat," a summary of the plan shared with CNN reads.
"We look to a future when Americans no longer fear lockdowns, shutdowns, and our kids not going to school. It's a future when the country relies on the powerful layers of protection we have built and invests in the next generation of tools to stay ahead of this virus."
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters that the administration has distributed more than 270 million N95 masks to local pharmacies and community health centers and that 70 million households have received rapid at-home Covid-19 tests.
It's a good start to a plan, but Biden completely fails to address three huge problems:
First, the one-quarter to one-third of American adults who still refuse vaccinations aren't going to give a damn about tests, antiviral treatments, N95 masks, or anything. That guaranteed tens of millions of Americans as a fertile ground for further mutations of COVID-19 well past Omicron.
Second, immune system compromised Americans who can't vaccinate will still face a populace where COVID is rampant, continuous, and a threat.
Third, the rampant mutations could very well lead to a super-strain of COVID that is not affected by our current arsenal, and all of this goes back to the dumbasses who refuse the damn vaccine.
Depressing to see Covid denial follow exactly the same trajectory as climate denial:
— Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) February 28, 2022
> It’s not real
> It’s real but not bad
> It’s real & bad but there’s nothing we can do
> We could do something but it would inconvenience us (& mostly help the more vulnerable) so not worth it
We're definitely into phase four here, moving on from a preventable disease that killed roughly 60,000 Americans in February. We're still in the part where we're averaging 2,000 dead per day.
COVID death denial is like climate denial at this point, she absolutely right.
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