Millions of masks to be sent to households in Biden equity plan
President Joe Biden will announce a program to send cloth masks to disadvantaged U.S. communities to curb the coronavirus pandemic while deciding for now to shelve a proposal to send masks to every American, according to two administration officials familiar with the plans.
The U.S. will probably send millions of masks around the country “very shortly,” Biden said Tuesday at a virtual roundtable event with Black essential workers who discussed the pandemic response with him.
Brig. Gen. David Sanford, director of the supply chain task force, then told Bloomberg Law that the administration intends to focus first on “key disadvantaged populations.”
The administration is taking the more targeted move after considering whether to send masks to all Americans, a notion that’s been shelved for now, according to another administration official with knowledge of the discussions.
It isn’t immediately clear which communities and groups will be sent masks, though Biden has made equity a core goal of his pandemic response. Sanford said the masks would be sent to “folks served by food banks and community clinics.” The coronavirus has disproportionately affected communities of color, and data compiled by Bloomberg shows that white people are receiving the vaccine in greater numbers than minorities.
Communities of color and other marginalized groups have also been disproportionately harmed by the pandemic, both in contracting the virus, needing to go to the hospital, and dying. For example, COVID-19 death rates were twice as high for Black Americans as for white Americans last summer, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Biden has made addressing those disparities a key part of his plan to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sanford said the masks will follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines for using cloth face masks.
— Bloomberg News
Biden to visit storm-ravaged Texas on Friday
President Joe Biden will travel to Houston on Friday to see firsthand the devastation wreaked by the winter storm and arctic cold wave.
Biden and first lady Jill Biden will fly to the battered city as millions struggle to return to normal life after the storm knocked out water and power across Texas.
The first family will meet with local leaders to discuss the ongoing recovery and will visit a COVID-19 health center where vaccines are being distributed.
Biden last week vowed to visit Texas, but wanted to wait until his trip wouldn’t be a disruption to local authorities.
“I don’t want to be a burden,” Biden said. “When the president lands in a city in America, it has a long tail.”
Temperatures have returned to near normal across the Lone Star State. but millions of Texas residents remain under boil water notices after the freezing temperatures and heavy snowfall caused power outages and burst pipes across the state.
Biden on Saturday declared a major disaster in Texas, and he has asked federal agencies to identify additional resources to address the suffering.
He has spoken with the governors of the seven states most affected by the winter weather and tweeted a photo of himself on the phone with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has shipped dozens of generators and supplies, including fuel, water, blankets and ready-to-eat meals, to the affected areas.
— New York Daily News
Sen. Ron Johnson airs conspiracy theory in hearing on Capitol riot
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson claimed Tuesday that leftists posing as Trump supporters played a role in storming the Capitol.
The Wisconsin Republican, who has said the attack “didn’t seem like an insurrection,” read from an uncorroborated account of the riot that included claims that “fake Trump supporters” and provocateurs help stir the violence.
“An organized cell of agents-provocateurs corral(ed) people as an unwitting follow-on force behind the plainclothes militants tussling with police,” Johnson said during a Senate hearing on security failings that led to the Jan. 6 disaster.
The account, which painted a sympathetic portrait of the majority of the rioting crowd, was written by J. Michael Waller, an analyst at the Center for Security Policy, a right-wing think tank that has been accused of promoting Islamophobia.
The account appeared to place blame for the violence on Capitol police who fired tear gas in a futile effort to stop the rioters from breaching the building.
“The tear gas changed the crowd’s demeanor,” Johnson said, quoting Waller. “There was an air of disbelief as people realized that the police whom they supported were firing on them.”
Johnson did not give security officials a chance to respond to the claims that the rioters weren’t really Trump supporters.
— New York Daily News
Ocasio-Cortez says congressional staffers need second jobs to make ends meet
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., on Tuesday called for congressional staffers to be paid more, saying that diverse “working-class” people can’t make enough to make ends meet in Washington, D.C.
Pointing out that congressional staffers remain mostly white, AOC noted that young people of color and those from working-class families may have the resources to take a relatively low-paying job as a lawmaker’s aide.
“Congress doesn’t pay enough to retain working-class talent,” she tweeted. “Many can’t afford to work here or need a 2nd job.”
Ocasio-Cortez boasts that she pays her interns $15 an hour and her lowest-paid aide makes more than $50,000 a year.
But she said paying decent wages means having a smaller team since lawmakers are allocated a set amount to spend on staff.
“Low pay shuts the door for so many talented people right out of the gate that they can’t accept the opportunity,” she tweeted. “Some wages are so low they essentially require generational wealth to subsidize.”
— New York Daily News
