Biden has said vaccine distribution was in \u201cworse shape than we anticipated.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said a Trump administration plan \u201cdid not really exist.<\/strong>\u201d Adviser Cedric Richmond said\u00a0they \u201cdidn\u2019t leave a plan<\/strong>.\u201d Xavier Becerra, Biden\u2019s choice for health secretary, said\u00a0it was like taking over a plane in a nosedive<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n But while Biden\u2019s approach to the virus — frank warnings about the pandemic, mask mandates on federal property — is a reversal from Trump\u2019s policies,\u00a0his administration\u2019s distribution of vaccines so far looks little different from that of its predecessor<\/strong>. Before Biden was sworn in, vaccines already were being delivered at a pace to meet his goal of 100 million doses in his first 100 days as president.<\/em><\/p>\n The Biden administration has said they\u2019ll order new doses,\u00a0but will do so by exercising options in contracts negotiated by the previous administration<\/strong>, which thought it premature to do so. They say they\u2019ll use the\u00a0Defense Production Act<\/strong>, which\u00a0Trump used repeatedly<\/strong>. Rather than a total overhaul,\u00a0they have otherwise made course corrections and modest shifts<\/strong>. Data released Friday by\u00a0Johnson & Johnson<\/a>\u00a0will fuel hopes that a third vaccine soon could hit the U.S. market. –Bloomberg<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Biden – who has a\u00a0history<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0plagiarism<\/a>\u00a0– was essentially lying<\/strong>, especially when one considers the\u00a0mammoth effort<\/strong>\u00a0involved in distribution efforts which would make major changes costly and risk setbacks to the program.\u00a0Bloomberg\u00a0<\/em>adds that “some aspects of the program\u00a0don’t offer much wiggle room to begin with<\/strong>, while the trickiest part are yet to come.”<\/p>\n Bloomber<\/em>g\u00a0<\/em>does toss Biden a bone, however, reporting that Trump ‘undercut’ Biden’s efforts to shape the program by delaying the transition while disputing the results of the election. Trump’s team, however, says they had over 300 transition briefings with health officials – which Biden officials claim contained little useful information until just days before the inauguration.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, officials from the Operation Warp Speed – the joint effort between the Trump administration’s Departments of Health and Human Services and DoD, say the partisan sniping from Biden’s team is\u00a0hurting morale among career staff who are handling the vaccine rollout<\/strong>.<\/p>\n “The transition is happening less well than I, and my team, had been hoping<\/strong>,” said Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed. “The team doesn\u2019t understand why the Operation is being criticized as it is. It is so unfair and unjustified.”<\/p>\n “If it wasn\u2019t for this Operation, we may not have as many vaccines as we will now.”<\/p>\n Also pushing back against the Biden team’s besmirchments is Anthony Fauci<\/strong>, the\u00a0highest-paid employee<\/a>\u00a0in the federal government and ongoing COVID-19 advisor to the Office of the President.<\/p>\n “We certainly are not starting from scratch<\/strong>,” Fauci said earlier this month. “It\u2019s taking what\u2019s gone on, but amplifying it in a big way,” he added. Even Biden said that “credit is absolutely due” to the Trump administration for launching the vaccine program.<\/p>\n The differences<\/strong><\/p>\n According to\u00a0Bloomberg<\/em>, “Biden is endorsing federally run community vaccination centers and mobile clinics,” and will attempt to provide states with a three-week supply, along with an increase in the number of people who can administer it. Trump officials, however, say the limitation is the number of vaccines, not healthcare professionals.<\/p>\n Biden is also\u00a0focusing on communities of color instead of devoting all resources to first vaccinating essential workers and those at most risk of dying from the virus<\/strong>. According to Biden, communities of color have been disproportionately affected by the virus.<\/p>\n Yet,\u00a0most of the plan remains unchanged<\/u><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Via\u00a0Bloomberg<\/em>:<\/p>\n [T]he biggest pieces of the distribution effort remain unchanged, undercutting claims from some Biden advisers that they inherited no plan<\/strong>. Many of the most stubborn bottlenecks don\u2019t stem from the federal government\u2019s decisions:\u00a0Companies simply can\u2019t produce vaccines fast enough and supplies are scarce; even if distribution goes smoothly, the administration of doses gets backed up at the local level<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing here is them marching through the playbook of Operation Warp Speed<\/strong>,\u201d added Michael Pratt, a former Health and Human Services official under Trump. \u201cSomething cannot simultaneously be a dismal failure and have already accomplished the \u2018ambitious goal\u2019 you set.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Nearly every industrialized nation has been beset by vaccine delays<\/strong>. The European Union has moved to\u00a0restrict vaccine exports<\/a>. The U.S. has administered 8.3 doses per 100 people, trailing the U.K. and Israel yet outpacing Germany, Canada, France and the EU overall, according to Bloomberg\u2019s Vaccine Tracker. –Bloomberg<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Biden team has also\u00a0retained many key Trump personnel<\/strong>, including the co-leader of Operation Warp Speed, General Gustave Perna.<\/p>\n Furthermore,\u00a0one of Biden’s key tools to move quickly on the virus response is the use of the Defense Production Act to prioritize the availability of certain materials and supplies –\u00a0<\/strong>which the Trump administration used extensively.<\/p>\n “It is really incorrect to say there was no plan — because we\u2019re already achieving 1.3 million doses in arms per day, which exceeds the first goal President Biden had<\/strong>,” said Brett Giroir, who led the Trump administration’s program to ramp up widespread virus testing.<\/p>\n One wild card is whether\u00a0another vaccine will hit the market anytime soon<\/strong>. Late Friday, Johnson & Johnson announced that its single-dose vaccine generated strong protection against COVID-19 in a large, late-stage trial. The company expects it to be ‘quickly brought to market without the missed delivery timelines of the Pfizer shots.’ If authorized for use, the J&J vaccine\u00a0could allow the Biden team to reach 2 million total doses per day<\/strong>\u00a0according to a former Trump official.<\/p>\n And that’s, the rest of the story…<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/sad%20biden_3.jpg?itok=n4ViXrCj\")
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