In a year’s balance, Joe Biden promises a billion tests to Americans

The President of the United States, Joe Biden, made a speech this Wednesday (19), at the White House, where he evaluated the challenges of the first year of government. Vaccination against Covid-19, the reopening of the economy and the generation of jobs in the country were highlighted by the US president as “remarkable progress”.

Among the measures to contain the Ômicron variant, Biden said that 1 billion coronavirus tests will be made available to citizens.

Biden highlighted the advance in immunization, and said the country is vaccinating 9 million people a week.

“After two years of physical and psychological burden, we are in a different moment, we have the tools: vaccines and masks. Vaccines work, get the vaccine and the booster shot. We’re also ramping up testing, we should have done more testing sooner, but we’ve gone from zero tests at home a year ago to millions of tests this month. In addition, we will make 1 billion tests available to be sent to your homes for free,” he said.

According to the president, the government’s objective is to create more and better jobs for people, focusing on the modernization of urban structures, ports and airports. Biden also focused on the importance of providing clean water to every citizen, as well as making internet access available to all Americans, in all areas of the country.

“We generate 6 million jobs, more in a year than at any time. Child hunger has dropped by almost 40%, there has been an increase in jobs as well, workers have actually gained a raise and incomes have increased,” Biden said.

In his first year in office, Biden held nine press conferences in total—six individual and three joint—according to data from The American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The last time he held a formal press conference was at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.

By comparison, former President Donald Trump held 21 press conferences in his first year in office, but only one was solo and the rest were joint appearances, often with foreign leaders. In his final year in office, when the pandemic took hold, Trump held 35 press conferences.

Economy

President Biden acknowledged that Americans are struggling with the high cost of living and supported the Federal Reserve’s efforts to fight inflation.

“We need to control inflation,” Biden said during his opening remarks on Wednesday. Biden stressed that price stability is the responsibility of the Fed.

“The critical job of ensuring that high prices don’t become entrenched falls to the Federal Reserve, which has a dual mandate: full employment and stable prices,” Biden said.

The president noted that Americans are seeing rapid price increases at supermarkets, gas stations and elsewhere. “Given the strength of our economy and the pace of recent price increases, it is appropriate… as Fed Chair Powell has indicated, to recalibrate the support that is now needed.”

Biden also detailed his administration’s efforts to fight inflation, including unclogging supply chains and cracking down on unfair market competition.

With information from Matt Egan, CNN North American*

In update*