It’s Tuesday.
Today is President Biden’s 76th day in office.
For day 76–President Biden will receive his daily brief. This afternoon he will tour a vaccination site at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. After the tour he will offer remarks on the state of the vaccines.
Reuters reported that Tuesday President Biden will say that the U.S., has delivered 150 million vaccines since he took office, plus he’s expected to direct states to widen vaccine distribution to all eligible American adults by April 19th, 2021. That’s according to a person familiar with the matter. President Biden had originally told states to make all adults eligible for the vaccine by May 1st.
On Monday at the time the Open Thread was posted President Biden hadn’t tweet; he ended up with 5 tweets, the first as I suspected was a live feed to remarks regarding Easter.
1:08 p.m. D.C., time he shares a live feed to his remarks. At 4:53 p.m. D.C., time he shares a photo of himself, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, and the Easter Bunny.
The video clip is 10 minutes and 21 seconds long. President Biden starts speaking at the 6 minute and 43 second mark.
Good afternoon. Jill and I are — thank you for joining us today. And we’re — we have a special guest, as you can see to my left here.
And I’m thankful to our friends at the White House Historical Association and the National Park Service for helping us deliver thousands of commemorative eggs to vaccination sites in communities and healthcare centers all across America.
Easter is a day of joy, when we celebrate resurrection and renewal. But this year, we know many are still going without the familiar comforts of the season.
White House.gov. 04/05/2021.
The virus is not gone, and the second year in a row most will be apart from their families or friends and a full congregation to fill us with so much joy. But the Scripture tells us, “Joy cometh in the morning.”
As we celebrate the renewal of this season, we know that longed-for dawn is almost here. We will rebuild our nation. We will reengage and reimagine what we can be. We’ll remember that with faith, hope, and love, anything is possible. And we look forward to next year when the White House will ring with joy the season once again and there’ll be an Easter Egg Roll, God willing.
May God bless you all. May God protect our troops — and take care of the Easter Bunny. (Laughter.)
Thank you all very, very much.
Speaking of the Easter Bunny…
Two of the 5 tweets focus on pressing his American Jobs Plan.
3:06 p.m. D.C., time he says Wall Street didn’t build this country…
6:10 p.m. D.C., time he says “broadband is infrastructure.”
The tweet is a variation of remarks made by President Biden on March 31st, 2021, when he revealed the American Jobs Plan.
It’s time to build our economy from the bottom up and from the middle out, not the top down. It hadn’t worked very well. For the economy overall, it hadn’t worked — because Wall Street didn’t build this country; you, the great middle class, built this country. And unions built the middle class.
White House.gov. 03/31/2021.
It’s opinion time. Woo Hoo.
I can’t fact-check this, because it’s one of those statements that is strictly speaking someone’s opinion on what infrastructure means.
Merriam-Webster tells us the word means:
- the system of public works of a country, state, or region also: the resources (such as personnel, buildings, or equipment) required for an activity
- the underlying foundation or basic framework (as of a system or organization)
- the permanent installations required for military purposes
I will have to process this more I think, to form a strong for or against argument. At this time I think I’m pro-broadband being infrastructure.
That’s not just post-COVID-19 thinking either, if I’m honest with myself, and of course, I try and always be honest with myself.
For example, I haven’t had cable since 2016, we’ve streamed everything since then; on our smart phones, on our laptops, and our TV’s.
For another example, when we started in the spring of 2018 to plan the News Blender we communicated using Twitter Direct Messages, that led us after much frustration on how inconvenient group Twitter DM’s were to using Slack as our form of messages to the group. We still use it to communicate quickly and more easily.
For even more examples, after the pandemic lock-downs started in 2020, my husbands company sent their office staff home where they worked for home. Many did this while their school aged children switched to Zoom classroom’s.
I think for me the real question is, if the internet is infrastructure does that make it easier for the government to take it over?
For his final tweet on Monday he congratulated Baylor for beating undefeated Gonzaga to become the National College Basketball Champions.
For Tuesday President Biden has so far tweeted 1 time.
10:34 a.m. D.C., time he asks that we don’t “let up in our fight against COVID-19.
During Monday’s White House COVID-19 Response Teams press briefing CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said that new cases over the 7-day average are up as well as hospital admissions.
The full transcript of the briefing can be found @ White House.gov. Her opening remarks start at the 2 minute and 58 second mark.
CDC’s most recent data show the seven-day average of new cases is about 64,000 cases per day. This is up approximately 7 percent compared to the prior seven-day period. Hospital admissions have also increased. The most recent seven-day trend average is about 4,970 admissions per day, up about 3 percent from the previous seven-day period. Deaths have decreased to an average of approximately 800 per day. Importantly, we are now entering our fourth week of increased trends and cases.
And as more schools are reopening, it’s even more important to make sure they do so safely, with strict adherence to CDC guidance, and for all of us to roll up our sleeves for a vaccine as soon as we can.
We are learning that many outbreaks in young people are related to youth sports and extracurricular activities. According to CDC guidance, these activities should be limited, but if they are not, the risks of clusters can be pervadence [sic] — can be prevented with cadence testing strategies, as are being rolled out in so many different places.
White House.gov. 04/05/2021.
For editorial thoughts on resuming our lives as if the virus has ended see @ the News Blender.
The White House daily press briefing is scheduled to start at 12:00 p.m. D.C., time.
Live Feed: The White House.
President Biden is expected to deliver remarks at 3:45 p.m. D.C., time.
Live Feed: The White House.
This is an Open Thread.
