Daily US Times: President Joe Biden has signed ten executive orders to boost the fight against the coronavirus pandemic which has ravaged the US.
Covid-19 vaccination will be accelerated and testing increased. Emergency legislation will be used to increase the production of essentials like masks.
Announcing the 10 measures, President Joe Biden said it would take months to defeat the pandemic but America would “get through this” if people stood together.
The executive orders come a day after he was sworn in as the 46th president.
In a break with former President Trump, the coronavirus policy stresses a national strategy rather than relying on states to decide what is best.
The former administration was widely accused of failing to get to grips with the pandemic.
In terms of total deaths from the virus, the US is the worst-hit country in the world with more than 406,000 lives lost, according to Johns Hopkins University. Nearly 24.5 million have been infected.
The US President said that the “bold practical steps” that he was taking would not come cheaply.
“Let me be clear – things will continue to get worse before they get better,” Mr Biden said, adding that he expected the number of dead to top half a million by next month.
“This is a wartime undertaking,” Biden said, repeating that more Americans had already died in the pandemic than in the whole of World War Two.
He mentioned the coronavirus vaccine, saying that its rollout had been a “dismal failure so far”, and described his plan for 100 million shots in his first 100 days in office as “one of the greatest operational challenges our nation has ever taken on”.
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