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President-elect @JoeBiden is about to present his $1.9 trillion #COVID19 relief plan. Let’s look at some of the key points: (1/12) https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/14/politics/biden-economic-rescue-package-coronavirus-stimulus/index.html
1. Mount a national vaccination program - we all know it’s not going as quickly as planned. He wants to invest $20 billion in a national program that would include community vaccination centers and mobile vaccination units. (2/12)
He strongly believes that 100 million doses can be administered in 100 days -- even without additional vaccines. (3/12)
2. Scale up testing - I’ve made it clear we aren’t doing enough testing. He wants to invest $50 billion to ramp up efforts including providing funds to purchase rapid tests for asymptomatic people (surveillance testing). (4/12) https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/expert-frustrated-at-lack-of-rapid-at-home-covid-19-tests/
This money would also go toward making sure schools could test regularly. (5/12)
3. Identify and address emerging variant strains - The US has not been doing enough sequencing to look for new mutations, so this proposal includes funding to dramatically increase: sequencing, surveillance and outbreak analytics (6/12) https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/10/health/old-coronavirus-sequences/index.html
4. Provide additional support to vulnerable populations in congregate settings - they are proposing funding to “deploy strike teams to long-term care facilities experiencing Covid-19 outbreaks.” They also want to offer support to prisons. (7/12) https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/11/us/jails-prisons-vaccine-priority/index.html
6. Address supply shortages - $30 billion to the Disaster Relief Fund to help make sure there’s enough PPE - something we know that has continued to be in short supply. (8/12)
6. Invest in more treatments and make them more available - we have seen a number of effective treatments developed, but some have lacked accessibility or are not being used adequately. (9/12) https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/16/health/monoclonal-antibodies-coronavirus-access/index.html
7. Help schools open safely - I have spoken about how hard this decision has been for me as a parent. @JoeBiden 's plan wants to provide $130 billion to provide schools to help with things like reducing class size and improving ventilation. (10/12) https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/12/health/covid-kids-school-gupta-essay/index.html
8. Paid sick leave - the plan would support granting access to paid sick leave so people who are sick don’t feel the pressure to go to work due to financial constraints. (11/12) https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/30/perspectives/paid-leave-protections-congress/index.html
So, why 1.9 trillion? Roughly 400 billion for combat Covid-19 (vaccines, testing), around $1 trillion for relief to families (including stimulus payments) and approx. $440 billion to help businesses (12/12)
