President-elect Joe Biden initiated a $1.9 trillion spending package on Thursday that aims to speed up the distribution of coronavirus vaccines and provide economic aid caused by the pandemic.
The package plan includes investing $20 billion in a national medical program, $1,400 stimulus checks, and increasing unemployment insurance supplements to $500 per week.
During a 25-minute speech, Biden said, “During this pandemic, millions of American citizens through no culpability of their own, have lost the respect and dignity that comes with a paycheck and job,” on Thursday.
“There are real problems, overwhelming the real economy,” he said.
During his speech, Biden mentioned that this was the first of a two-part plan to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Biden said that he would initiate a recovery plan in a couple of months during his address to Congress’s joint session.
His proposed relief package comes a month after Congress passed a $900 billion coronavirus relief package in December, which the president-elect referred to at the time as a “down payment.”
More than 386,000 people in America have died from coronavirus, including more than 4,300 on Wednesday alone.
Biden’s coronavirus relief fund will extend the bipartisan relief legislation passed in December. \
The national vaccination program, which will be associated with tribes, states, and territories, will deploy vaccination units to areas that are hard to reach. This will make the vaccine accessible to everyone in the United States. The relief proposal also includes $50 million to expand testing for COVID-19, invest in expanding lab capacity, purchase rapid tests, and local governments implement testing protocols.
Biden said he would initiate his vaccine distribution plan Friday.
Criticizing the Trump government’s rollout of the vaccine, Biden said, “The vaccine rollout in the U.S. has been a bleak failure so far,” adding, “will have to move earth and heaven to get more people vaccinated.”
