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On First Full Day, Biden Takes Aggressive Steps to Ramp Up COVID Fight

Ken Bredemeier

   WASHINGTON - New U.S. President Joe Biden is moving aggressively
   Thursday to ramp up the national government's fight to curb the
   coronavirus pandemic by signing 10 orders to increase production of
   vaccines and medical equipment, while attempting to safely reopen
   schools and businesses.

   Biden is moving to markedly increase coronavirus testingand,at the same
   time,trying to open 100 federally supported community vaccination
   centers around the country within the next month. Sixteen million
   Americans have been inoculatedso far,fewerthan the 20 million health
   officials in the administration of former President Donald Trump had
   promised to havevaccinatedby the end of December.

   The White House said Biden's orders, buttressed by his request to
   Congress for $1.9 trillion in new coronavirus relief aid, "will help
   keep workers safe and healthy, get more Americans back to work, and
   ultimately reduce the spread of the virus."

   The pandemic has already killed more than 406,000 Americans and
   infected 24.4 million, with both figures higher than in any other
   country, according to Johns Hopkins University.

   "We need to ask average Americans to do their part," said Jeff Zients,
   the White House official directing the national coronavirus response.
   "Defeating the virus requires a coordinated nationwide effort."

   Biden officials say a lack of cooperation from the Trump administration
   during the transitionhindered their ability tounderstand their
   predecessors'plansforvaccine distribution.However outgoing Health and
   Human Services Secretary Alex Azar defended his agency's work on the
   transition earlier this month, sayingit had held morethan300 meetings
   with President-Elect Biden's transition teamsince late November.

   State governments, meanwhile,have complained they are not getting
   enough doses even as the national government has expanded the
   categories of people eligible for the shots.

   "We are entering what may well be the toughest and deadliest period of
   the virus," Biden said in his inauguration address, before pausing for
   a moment of silence in memory of those who have died from COVID-19.

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