President Biden spoke to the press yesterday when he announced that states have been directed to make all adults eligible for a coronavirus vaccine by April 19th, but it won't do much good if we don't find ways to get more shots into more arms.
To that end, Biden also announced a staggering expansion of the federal vaccine program.
Biden said the US would increase the number of pharmacies participating in the federal pharmacy vaccination program from the current 17,000 locations to 40,000. He also announced a record 33 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines will be made available to vaccination sites this week -- a surge in availability that the administration hopes will mean newly eligible adults can find shots.
The President, however, stressed that the country's battle against Covid-19 is "far from won" as cases are once again on the rise and called on every governor, mayor and local leader to maintain -- and in some cases reinstate -- mask mandates.
I still haven't been able to schedule an appointment for myself yet. My local pharmacies at Kroger and Walgreens are booked for the next two weeks and CVS is not currently participating in federal program. But with vaccine locations expanding from 17,000 to 40,000, that will hopefully open up more options for everyone who doesn't live near a mass vaccination site. I do not that I'm aware of.
None of this would be happening if Trump were still in office. His regime wasn't even planning to operate a large federal program.
Elections have life or death consequences.