Biden’s First Month in Office

By Mary Courtney Finn

While most major new sources give the new President of the United States a full 100 days in office before they begin publishing their official critiques of the new leader, here at The Echo, we waste no time updating the community on what has been happening politically since January 20th. The focus of Joe Biden’s first month has been primarily on his response to COVID-19 and his administration’s vaccination plan. After a massive spike in cases in December in 2020, many Americans looked to Biden to begin to slow the spread of the virus. Just days after Inauguration, the Biden Administration released a 200+ page COVID-19 strategy playbook containing pertinent information regarding vaccinations, returning to work and school, and economic stimulation plans. One of the plan’s foci is to increase accessibility to COVID-19 tests by creating an online dashboard to track the spread of the virus in cities and towns across the country. Still, nothing of this nature has developed so far under Biden. Yet another critical part of Biden’s COVID-19 plan included mass vaccination to move toward herd immunity. These efforts are also falling behind, considering only 15% of the population has been vaccinated, and hundreds of vials of the vaccine go bad every day after not being used in time. Luckily for places such as BGA, Biden moved up K-12 teachers on the priority list to be vaccinated sooner than previously stated. While the vaccination process is still slow, it is moving in the right direction to make sure all at-risk Americans can get the vaccine as soon as possible. Vaccines aside, Biden also developed a new stimulus package for medical research funding, individual stimulus checks, and unemployment benefits. While it did not pass under the latest stimulus package, the Biden Administration is working towards raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. While being President during a global pandemic is no easy task, Biden does have some work to reach his initial Presidential promises.