Your Daily Roundup for January 22nd

President Biden has issued several executive actions to address COVID-19:

After a year of a disjointed federal response under the previous administration, President Biden used his first full day in office on Thursday to issue several executive orders and actions related to the COVID-19 crisis. As part of a 200-page national pandemic strategy developed by the new administration, Biden issues several new orders, including:

• Accelerating manufacturing and testing by identifying where Biden could invoke the Defense Production Act to increase manufacturing of critical supplies;
• A mask mandate for interstate travel as well as in federal buildings;
• The establishment of a health equity task force;
• Directing HHS to study new treatments for COVID-19 and future pandemics;
• Guidance to protect workers’ health; and 
• Guidance on how to safely reopen schools.

Today, Biden is issuing two additional executive orders related to the economic crisis that has precipitated from the pandemic. One order will provide additional federal aid for families experiencing food insecurity and another will direct the Treasury to determine how to send stimulus checks to eligible Americans who have yet to receive assistance.

Dr. Fauci is back:

On Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease doctor in the country and now President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said that the U.S. was “still in a very serious situation” with respect to the pandemic as total cases near 25 million and deaths have tragically surpassed 400,000. He called the response to COVID-19 to date, “historic, in the very bad sense,”  but that hope rested in distributing tens of millions of vaccines as they are shown to be effective even against the newer, more contagious strains of the virus.