Biden proposes a science-led New Deal to end pandemic suffering

President-elect Joe Biden wants to hire many thousands of new public health workers to battle the COVID-19 pandemic.
Science’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.
After announcing a $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan” yesterday to “change the course of the pandemic,” President-elect Joe Biden today provided more details on how his administration will address what he called the “dismal failure” of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, safely reopen schools by March, and ramp up surveillance to track where SARS-CoV-2 is moving and how it’s mutating.
“The more people we vaccinate and the faster we do it, the sooner we can put this pandemic behind us,” said Biden in an afternoon speech. Almost simultaneously, the president-elect revealed key members of his administration’s science team, many of whom will be central to the plan.