December 21, 2021
President Biden has a “winter plan” to tackle the increasing numbers of the Omicron variant of Covid19 cases across the country.
No – he didn’t announce any new lockdowns. The President said that’s possible because of his vaccine or testing mandates. He says those will keep businesses and schools open and safe. But he also said his administration plans to do several things including…
- Purchasing 500 million rapid at-home Covid19 tests to send to American homes for free starting in January. You’ll be able to request a test through a new website
- Establish new testing sites across the country including in New York where we’ve been seeing extremely long lines to get a test
- Deploy 1000 military doctors, medics and nurses in January and February. They’ll spread out across the country to help relieve exhausted hospital staff. Plus immediately send an additional 100 federal medical personnel to Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Arizona, New Hampshire and Vermont on top of the 300 who were already sent
- FEMA will be helping hospitals add capacity and more beds to treat Covid patients. FEMA will also set up new pop-up vaccination clinics in “high demand” areas.
- And the President will continue to utilize the defense production act to produce more Covid19 tests and supplies
Read the President’s winter plan here.
PLUS
It looks like the Department of Homeland Security is going back to construction along the border wall…but it’s not really what you think.
The Biden Administration announced yesterday the Department of Homeland Security is taking up several projects along the border wall between the United States and Mexico.
Things like –
- Closing small gaps in the actual wall that remained open and unfinished from prior construction
- Completing or installing drainage along the border to prevent flooding and mitigating soil erosion
- Completing the prior construction of patrol, maintenance and access roads used by border patrol agents.
- And getting rid of all the leftover building junk that’s been sitting there since construction shut down
If you remember President Biden stopped all the Trump-era border wall activities on his first day in office. And since then, the Department of Defense and the US Army Corp of Engineers have been canceling those border wall contracts and shutting down the projects. But that’s left a lot of stuff unfinished and the homeland security secretary says that unfinished work, has left some dangerous conditions for Americans who live along the border and the border patrol agents who work along the border.
These projects will begin in the new year within the border patrol’s San Diego, El Centro, Yuma, Tucson, El Paso and Del Rio sectors.
It’s also important to note – the Administration continues to face several lawsuits from environmental groups and the ACLU over that border wall construction. These lawsuits argue significant damage was caused to the environment, wildlife and protected lands while pieces of the border wall were being constructed under the trump administration. According to the Trump administration between 2017 and 2020, border patrol says about 438 miles of “border wall system” was built. The majority of it was not “new” wall construction but instead, much needed replacement for existing barriers that were in bad shape.
Read the new Homeland Security Department project announcement here.
Read the Customs and Border Protection report from 2020 about the Trump border wall construction here.
