Biden's pandemic plan: 10 things to know

Rickey Stokes

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Date: Jan 22 2021 11:35 AM

President Joe Biden signed 10 executive orders to combat COVID-19 spread Jan. 21 and shared a 198-page pandemic response plan Jan. 21, reports The Washington Post.

The "National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness" plan aims to allocate more money for states and expands on many strategies and goals the Biden administration has previously introduced.

Ten things to know:

1. President Biden signed an executive order Jan. 21 to require masks on planes, trains, buses and in airports, according to The New York Times.. The order also implements mandatory quarantines for international travelers. These actions build on the executive order President Biden signed his first day in office requiring masks in all federal buildings.

2. Another executive order will create a national testing board tasked with developing and quickly scaling up new rapid tests for COVID-19, according to CNBC.

3. The president's pandemic plan also instructs HHS to collect data on school reopenings and COVID-19's spread to produce more research into the risk of sending kids back to school.

4. President Biden will establish a "COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force" to ensure COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and other supplies reach communities of color that have been disproportionately affected by the virus. 

5. Through another executive order, the president will create a drug discovery and development program that will continue research into potential COVID-19 treatments and emphasize more diversity in clinical trials. 

6. Another action aims to improve federal data collection and sharing. The order instructs the CDC to create a dashboard detailing county-level COVID-19 cases so people can better assess the level of transmission in their own communities.

7. An executive order called "A Sustainable Public Health Supply Chain" outlines the president's intentions to use the Defense Production Act to compel companies to manufacture supplies needed for the nation's pandemic response.

8. As part of the pandemic plan, the federal government will start fully reimbursing states for the cost of using the National Guard to aid in pandemic response activities. 

9. Another executive action instructs the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to immediately release guidelines for employers to protect their workers' health and safety.

10. The Biden administration proposed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package last week. White House officials said they would need much of those funds to enact the president's response plan, according to the Times.

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