While he was in office, former President Donald Trump’s lack of effort and seriousness regarding COVID-19 caused many Americans to fear for current and future public health. Trump and his administration were rarely seen wearing masks or social distancing, and other safety measures were not encouraged as much as they should have been. Trump’s suggestions to “inject disinfectant” were apparently intended to ease concerns, and worse: vaccines were being distributed at a rate many found unsatisfactory.

Now, however, with Trump out and President Joe Biden in office, there might just be hope to both vaccinate people at a faster rate, and to move one step closer to defeating the coronavirus once and for all.

As of February 9th, Biden has made plans to increase vaccine supply to individual states by five percent within a week, a drastic change in the vaccination system compared to how it was previously run. He will also distribute more vaccines to support low-income communities, where healthcare is not as readily available. Furthermore, because white people get vaccinated more often than people of color, the President is also working to make healthcare more accessible to minorities to ensure equity in the vaccine process.

“Equity is our North Star here,” says Marcella Nunez-Smith, leader of Biden’s COVID-19 Equity Task Force. She emphasized, “connecting with those hard-to-reach populations across the country” in the process of fairly administering vaccines to all.

Despite these major plans and changes, anti-vaxxers pose a consistent threat to the safety of the public. A survey showed that less than half of American adults are planning to get vaccinated, an insufficient number if America is to combat the coronavirus. According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Biden administration’s goal is to get 70-85% of people in the U.S. vaccinated, seemingly unattainable based on current numbers. Even with severe complications from the virus, many still refuse to get vaccinated. COVID-19 patient Wendy Borger caught a severe case, troubled by shortness of breath, heart palpitations, fatigue, high fever, an oxygen level at 94%, and lungs that were as painful as a “weapon” when she moved. However, even after suffering for over a month with the virus, Borger stated that she will not get vaccinated, believing that “our body needs to fight off things naturally” and diminishing the severity of her case (alongside the severity of COVID-19 across the US) saying, “It was bad, but I survived.” Such statements are not sufficient reasoning to forgo vaccination, yet many Americans fail to understand that.

One piece of good news comes from the CDC, which reports that 32 million people received their first doses of the vaccine, with 9 million already fully vaccinated as of February 4th. Now that the COVID-19 vaccine is becoming more available to Americans, properly educating and changing the views of anti-vaxxers may be the only way for the Biden administration to get the number of people inoculated that Biden wishes for.