President Joe Biden signed a slew of executive actions this week aimed at vaccinating 100 million Americans in the first 100 days of his administration. Among the initiatives the president announced is a planned expansion of pharmacy partnerships, mobilizing the National Guard, and finding more healthcare workers to help distribute vaccines. But, Biden is still warning that the darkest days of the pandemic are yet to come, predicting the virus death toll will probably top 500,000 next month.
To ramp up supplies, the president is giving government agencies a green light to use the Defense Production Act to direct manufacturing to help increase the supply of masks, PPE, testing kits, and the necessary materials for vaccines.
"It gives the federal government more focus and more opportunity to coordinate a response from the federal level, which is always helpful," said Tom Price, former secretary of Health and Human Services under President Trump and a former representative from Georgia.
The president also ordered new requirements for mask-wearing, mandating them on planes, trains, and buses when traveling between states. Masks must also be worn inside all federal facilities.
"At the end of the day this is public health, which means you've got to increase the administration of the vaccine, you've got to increase the testing, you've got to make sure you're decreasing the spread of the transmission," said Price. "That means wearing a mask, physical distancing, making certain that you're washing your hands, and not participating in activities if you're feeling ill at all."
President Biden's "National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness"
is a stark contrast to former President Donald Trump's coronavirus actions. His administration never released a formal pandemic plan and left many actions solely up to the states. Still, Price said he thinks focusing the federal government's efforts on helping the states is an important aspect of tackling the pandemic.
"Remember the states have the infrastructure that is necessary in order to be able to administer the vaccine and to provide the tests, the public health, the infrastructure. All of this is at the state level. So, any help that can be given to the states is vital," said the former HHS secretary.
Honing in on one state, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Wednesday that New York has already used 93 percent of its coronavirus vaccine supply, putting some pressure on Biden in the early days of his administration.
"The state of New York actually asked the new administration … for the opportunity to themselves go out and purchase vaccine on their own and the federal government said no, the Biden administration said no, 'we don't want you to do that.' Now, that's all well and good so long as the federal government is making certain that the amount of vaccine being produced is the amount that's needed out there," said Price.
"We may be seeing the first little disagreement about how we get the greatest number of vaccines to the individuals that need it most acutely."
To make sure that governments can get the job done when it comes to vaccinations, he added that "communication is absolutely the key" for states, like New York, to get across their needs and, "The federal government needs to take that information in real-time and say 'this is what we're doing to address it.'" Price emphasized that it's the job of the government to get what is needed to those on the ground at the local level.
"There is a whole lot of vaccine out there that hasn't been given, as they say, in arms," he said. "We're giving about 900,000 vaccines a day right now so the goal of the Biden administration, of having 100 million doses provided in the first 100 days, is certainly achievable, and I would suggest that it may be a little low."
Price made a comparison to the flu, saying that when the flu shot is given out in the fall, the U.S. provides about three million vaccines a day during the height of the season.
However, Price did note that he believes the U.S. can accomplish Biden's goals and stop the spread of COVID-19.
"It is achievable because it's a public health challenge, and we've met public health challenges before."
A new report from ProPublica and the Washington Post found that Facebook Groups played a major role in the spread of misinformation linked to the January 6 insurrection with more than 650,000 posts claiming that Joe Biden's election victory was illegitimate.
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U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over the week-end, just days after he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The call comes as Washington prepares to meet with Moscow on January 10, as tensions mount over Russia's military build up near its border with Ukraine. Cheddar News speaks with Mustafa Tameez, a former advisor to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, about the issue.
Several Silicon Valley insiders are being accused of contorting a 1990s-era tax break to avoid taxes on millions of dollars of investment profits. The tax break is known as the qualified small business stock exemption, and it allows early investors in certain companies to avoid half of the taxes on up to $10 million in capital gains. A piece recently published in the New York Times says venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz replicated the tax exemption by giving shares of companies to friends and family, who would otherwise face a 23.8% capital gains bill. The CEO of Roblox is also accused of replicating the tax break for his family members at least 12 times. Although the loophole known as 'stacking' is considered to be legal, the Times piece implies that the exemption has been manipulated for the ultra-wealthy to become more wealthy. Greycroft co-founder and Chairman Emeritus Alan Patricof joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
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The push to regulate the gig worker economy is gaining steam as the share of workers who participate in freelancing through businesses like Uber and Lyft have also exponentially grown during the pandemic. Employment attorney Mark Kluger, founding partner at Kluger Healey, LLC, joined Cheddar to break down how the battle to reclassify gig workers will continue in the new year, and why the issue continues to generate conflict. "More and more workers are using gig work as their primary source of income and as a result of that they are not like employees in the sense that they don't have benefits like health insurance," Kluger noted.
2021 saw markets continue to be impacted by the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic -most recently in the form of the Omicron variant- in addition to the global supply chain shortage, and increased inflation. But it wasn't all bad news, as crypto soared throughout the year, and meme stocks continued to have a moment. With the year coming to a close, investors are keeping an eye out to see if they should expect more of the same in the new year. Chris Vecchio, Senior Analyst, at DailyFX tells us what market trends to be on the watch for in 2022.
