Biden To Unveil “Next Phase” Of COVID Response

Just hours after the House passed the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion stimulus package (which will unleash another wave of “stimmies” that will inevitably find their way into millions of Robinhood and other discount brokerage accounts), President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he would unveil “the next phase” of the US COVID-19 response on Thursday, which is also the one-year anniversary of the first COVID-inspired lockdowns in the US.

Biden, who made the remarks during a press briefing with the CEO of Johnson & Johnson on Wednesday, will share the details of the plan during a prime-time address Thursday evening.

“Tomorrow night, I’m going on primetime to address the American people and talk about what we went through as a nation this past year. But more importantly, I’m going to talk about what comes next,” Biden said Wednesday.

“I’m going to launch the next phase of the Covid response and explain what we will do as a government and what we will ask of the American people,” he said. “There is light at the end of this dark tunnel over the past year. We cannot let our guard down now or assume that victory is inevitable. Together, we’re going to get through this pandemic and usher in a healthier, more hopeful future.”

Biden also proclaimed Wednesday that, after the COVID pandemic is finally quashed, his administration is planning to pivot to focusing on its next health-care policy goal: eradicating cancer. Note: Biden’s son Beau Biden succumbed to brain cancer a few years ago – cancer that doctors suspected was linked to the younger Biden’s service in Iraq. The administration is also hoping to push through a sweeping infrastructure plan.

If these plans seem a little too grandiose, especially after the massive blowout in the national debt over the last few years, fear not: Biden and his fellow Dems apparently realized that the federal government can fund all of its policy priorities, no matter how costly, by simply allowing the Fed to monetize all of the debt.

Earlier Wednesday, the White House announced plans to buy 100MM additional doses of J&J’s COVID-19 jab in a deal that would double the nation’s supply of the J&J vaccine as the company already has a deal with the government to provide 100MM doses by the end of June. Merck is helping to make J&J’s Covid vaccine, which is helping to accelerate production.

“I’m doing this because in this wartime effort, we need maximum flexibility,” Biden said Wednesday on plans to purchase more J&J vaccine doses.

“There’s always a chance that we’ll encounter unexpected challenges or there will be a new need for a vaccine effort…a lot can happen, a lot can change and we need to be prepared.”

Thanks to this, Biden said, any American who wants a vaccine can now expect to receive one by May 31. The president also noted that 50MM shots have been distributed since he took office, while also claiming that the US has administered the most shots of any country in the world.

“In five weeks, America has administered the most shots of any country in the world – any country in the world – with among the highest percentage of population fully vaccinated. That’s progress we promised,” Biden said.

Of course, that’s not entirely true. According to Bloomberg’s numbers, the US is in the lead, with nearly 96MM jabs administered, compared with 52MM for China. But China has also vaccinated millions with its domestically produced vaccines under “emergency use” authorizations that allowed the CCP to start doling out the experimental jabs much earlier than many medical ethicists would have been comfortable with. Back in November, the head of Sinopharm, one of the biggest Chinese vaccine producers, said his company’s jabs had already been administered to 1MM people before the first US vaccines were even approved for emergency use.

This article originally appeared on ZeroHedge.