By: Ada Muqqadus — Correspondent

President Joseph Biden has made a promise to turn around the COVID-19 pandemic and increase vaccinations for Americans as soon as possible. 

Biden says he will work with local, federal and state officials in setting up vaccination centers across the U.S. The Biden administration suggested that they needed to start from “scratch,” which Dr. Fauci rejected. 

“We’re certainly not starting from scratch, because there is activity going on in the distribution,” said Fauci. Fauci adds that the Biden administration is stepping up in remarkable ways with the vaccine distribution efforts.

Biden plans to distribute 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days in office. “This is going to be the first of many engagements we’re going to have here,” said Biden.

The U.S is currently administering about more than 1 million doses of the vaccine a day. Rochelle Walensky, Head of CDC, says that they “would prefer to ‘underpromise’ and ‘overdeliver.’” 

Vaccines will be free of charge for all the people regardless of immigration status. “The states are being told immediately they need to expand to 65-plus as well as those under 65 with comorbid conditions,” said the senior administration official. 

According to Biden, it will take some time to enhance manufacturing to meet the current demand for vaccinations. “I am not sure anyone knows this accurately at this point, since no mRNA vaccine has been manufactured before at any scale close to what will be required for COVID-19. I am going to dare say that it will take at least a couple of weeks per batch,” said Jennifer Pancorbo. 

Biden plans for a stronger federal response unlike former President Trump who chose to leave tasks up to state. “It is a large-scale campaign to promote trust and build vaccine confidence, in close collaboration with doctors and nurses, faith-based, civic and advocacy groups working with or representing the hardest-hit communities,” said Biden.

He says he also intends to increase the number of testing in hospitals. He will supply more aid to schools and local governments to utilize regular testing. 

Biden outlined his $1.9 trillion stimulus relief package, of which $400 billion would go directly to combating the pandemic, including $50 billion to escalate COVID-19 testing, $20 billion to boost vaccination efforts, and funds to hire 100,000 public health workers.

The Biden administration will fund more health services and in poor communities, increasing staff and infection-control (CDC) of nursing homes and explore more applicable and curable treatments. 

“Biden’s health care plan rollout coincides with the increase of critiques he has recently launched against his Democratic opponents who support scraping the Affordable Care Act and transitioning to a primarily government run system like Medicare-for-All,” said Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor.