Joseph Robinette Biden and Susan Elizabeth Rice

“ And then, Wednesdays and Thursdays and Fridays, they attend the daycare.
And our, you know, teachers there are willing to, you know, help assist them, you know, with their hybrid learning. But, you know, sometimes — you know, not even just my kids, but all the kids as well are dealing with their social and emotional needs of social distancing and really can’t go anywhere but just school and home. So we have to, you know, deal with those aspects of the kids as well. ”

“ Many people were without power for, you know, weeks — approximately a week that the city was without power.
So, you know, we were doing whatever we could to help the community. So not only did we have the derecho or the COVID to deal with, we also had a derecho that rolled through that — which was another, you know, amazing challenge. But, you know, still, you know, we still persevered. And very proud and happy for the job that, you know, Hy-Vee and our employees were able to do — and customers alike. We all rallied together, you know, to get through this. ”

“ I am one of the only states that has not prioritized childcare for the vaccine. And that’s concerning to me because, once again, I work every single day in the pandemic. And I’m –you know, I’m an essential worker and I’m taking care of essential workers’ kids. So — and, as a parent, I want to make sure I have childcare and childcare that is safe.
My — the Haynes have installed ionizers, you know, to improve our ventilation system. And I can only assume that is working. We provide masks for, you know, our staff. We are washing our hands. We social distance. We do temperature checks. ”

“ Social distancing, so you’re not coughing on one another — the particles. The ventilation you talked about, Carmen, makes a difference in community centers and the like.
And so there’s so many things that we can do that are just within our own power. We’re probably going to be sending out an awful lot of masks around the country, very shortly — millions of them. But the point is that you — you all, interesting, without my asking you, talked about the need to social distance. It’s kind of hard to social distance in a firetruck. ”

“ You know, I guess, they tell me the statistic is that the vast majority of the American people live within five miles of a pharmacy. Well, the point is that that may be case, but if you’re an older person living by yourself, you don’t have a vehicle, and there’s no public transportation, it’s a little hard to get to that pharmacy. So we’re working out ways now to provide mobile transportation — literally vans going into communities — and people, you know, getting shots that are being administered by people who people tend to trust. ”

“ But, look, when the American people set their minds to something, there’s nothing — nothing we’ve been unable to do if we do it together. So with your help — and there’s so darn many — you know, we — look — look at all the stuff that’s, I don’t know, bad or disappointing out there, but there’s so darn many good, decent, honorable people in this country, and they want to get it done right. ”

“ President, we have pharmacists, we have pharmacy techs. We have about nine mobile units ready to go out into the communities to reach people that possibly cannot get the vaccine. We can go to them. And we recently had an event at Drake University that, you know, we vaccinated over 1,000 people.
So I think things are, like — things like this, we are capable, we are ready to do to help you, because we have your back as well. And I think what we really need is — we have, like I said, stores in multiple states — we just need to get the vaccine delivered so that we can go out and do our thing. ”

“ And during this past year, the pandemic has really challenged us to not only focus on service to our customers and our employees, but also serv- — safety. You know, we really had to shift our focus rapidly on how we take care of our customers, how we make sure that they are safe when they come into stores.
We were one of the first stores to install Plexiglas shields to protect our employees and our customers. We also put directional arrows in — on our floors to create social distancing so that, you know, people didn’t crowd and possibly spread the virus. ”

“ One of the things that you and Melanie know is that we had to get vaccinators. It’s one thing to get a vaccine delivered; it’s another thing to get it out of that vial, into a needle, and into somebody’s arm. And so we worked very hard. We’ve probably gotten another — close to 4,000 people who give vaccinations, from National Guard, to the Defense Department, to others, and to — and to units within commercial operations that can have people who can do the vaccination. ”

“ We’re like, “No, you have to social distance. You know, we have to keep our distance.” It’s hard keeping the zero — you know, the younger kids to keep their masks up, you know, to protect themselves.
Our enrollment is down, and we are seeing less of our families because of the pandemic. They’re not working, and, you know, they’re losing their jobs. And I’m just really grateful that I’m able to still work, you know, during the pandemic, and that’s important to me to keep an employment.
AMBASSADOR RICE: Thank you, Carmen. ”

“ And to the extent you can continue to have your constituencies — and they’re all different — is to make sure that they understand that social distancing matters, washing your hands matters, and the whole idea. ”

“ And if you talk about the vaccine, we’ve been trying to get in line there — here in Missouri — and get as many guys vaccinated as possible so we can keep serving the community.
But make no bones about it: St. Louis firefighters are here. We answer every call. You know, we are resourceful and we adapt very well, and we’re ready to go.
We just would like the support from federal government, local, and state to keep us afloat so we can have the equipment and things to keep us going to do our job. And we’ll appreciate everything you guys can do for us. ”

“ And I don’t have to tell you that, Al. You know, you had two kids affected, right?
MR. ALFRED: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. They’re doing pretty good. We’re blessed.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank God.
So, but one of the things that — you know, again, I’m going to go back to the whole question of equity. What we’re trying to do — my team and I — is get people who in fact have been most hurt by this pandemic to places where they are comfortable, where they have comfort in going. They don’t feel like they are — they’re not intimidated by the circumstance. ”

“ But in addition to that, it will provide those parents with access to not only your daycare center, but others across the country to be able to afford it.
And we’re also making sure that we provide money for folks who are about to be thrown out of their homes, or, you know, there’s millions of people out there who can’t — can’t pay the rent. And so we’ve deferred any cost to have to pay the rent while this pandemic is going on, because otherwise you just have — we’d be vastly increasing the homeless population, which makes no sense. ”

“ We also know, because of the way American medicine has taken advantage of African Americans for experimentation over the last 100 years, that there’s a real — a real reluctance that still exists in the African American community to get the vaccination, even if it’s available. ”

“ We provide for resources — $350 billion for emergency funding for state, local, and territorial governments. Now, we got 340 million people in America. We got a big country.
And — and so what’s happened is a lot of states have decided that they — because they have to balance their budgets — they can’t — they can’t continue to spend the same amount of revenue they were spending before. And what’s happening is a lot of — everything from firefighters to school teachers to a whole range of people are being laid off. We’re short 6,000 teachers, firefighters. ”

“ We’ve just gone from — because we find that that’s more accessible to an awful lot of folks who are — don’t have the means to travel very far, don’t have the access to get to where they need to go. And they’re used to their pharmacy and they know their pharmacist, and they can get a shot. ”

“ The President’s American Rescue Plan, if passed by Congress, will bring an end to this pandemic, and it will invest in you and your fellow frontline workers and all Americans so we can keep ourselves safe and rebuild our economy so that it works for everyone.
Mr. President, joining us here today are Demetris Alfred –he goes by “Al” — who is a —
THE PRESIDENT: To me, he’s “Mr. President.”
AMBASSADOR RICE: (Laughs.) Al is a firefighter and EMT in St. Louis, Missouri. And we have Melanie Owens, a pharmacist in Chicago; Carmen Palmer, a childcare worker in Columbus, Ohio ”

“ And my role is to ensure not only zero to five children eat, but our school ages as well. I love providing, you know, for nutritious meals because I, you know, know what it’s like not to, you know, eat or know where my next meal is coming from, especially growing up in foster care. ”

“ And what I found is — from the days when my dad was raising me — that sometimes people, when they don’t know what to do, they’re embarrassed to acknowledge they don’t know how to do it. They don’t know how to get it done. ”

“ So, you know — I mean, so — but all kidding aside, I’m anxious to hear what’s on your mind, what you think we should be doing, and then maybe, in the process, ask a few questions and tell you the kinds of things we’re doing to try to deal with what are, we think — I hope — are the problems of the people who are keeping us floating. ”

“ I work for Hy-Vee, and Hy-Vee is a grocery store chain in — we have stores in Iowa. And, as you mentioned, Mr. President, we have too many stores in Iowa, but we also have stores in Nebraska, Illinois, South Dakota, Missouri, Kansas, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. So we are —
THE PRESIDENT: I know. I was teasing you. (Laughs.)
MR. CARTER: (Laughs.) I know. But it’s — we’re a great company, and I really have — appreciate the opportunity that I have to work for them.
We employ over 88,000 employees. ”

“ They know where people who are really in real dire straits, who they — they’re going out to get them, to get them vaccinated. And so we’re hoping that this helps.
In addition, you know, one of the things we’re going to be able to do is: Part of this investment is $20 billion in the National Vaccination Program. As you know, the funding helps deploy community vaccinators and vaccination centers. You’re one of them. You’re in the community. ”

“ And they’re usually — they’re used to going to the grocery store. They’re used to going to their — to their drugstore or pharmacy. They’re used to doing those things. But we also are trying to get out mobile units into communities — not only inner city, but rural communities that don’t have as much access. ”

“ I mean, it will be — it would have a tremendous impact on our families. Our families are, you know, telling us now that they can’t work, and it’s definitely hard to find childcare if you don’t have any employment. ”

“ I carry a card with me every day with the total number of folks who have been affected by the — as of yesterday, there are 500,071 people who have died from this — 500. That’s more people that died in World War One, World War Two, and Vietnam combined, in a year — in a year. ”

“ You know, everyone had that assumption that they would have to go out far and wide to find the vaccine, but I think it’s an awesome thing that we’re starting to roll it out in these communities — you know, in all communities. ”

“ And Hy-Vee is ready. We’re ready to help you. As Demetris said, we’ve got your back. We just — I have two — like I said, I have two stores, and like Melanie, we are vaccinating as well.
So we have — just recently, I sent our pharmacy team from one of my stores to a long-term care facility, and we vaccinated 120 senior citizens in that facility that had not been probably out of that facility for probably a year. ”

“ We’re going to raise that to $3,000 per child, and $3,600 for a child under the age of six, and make it refundable, which is the big deal. Because if you’re not making a lot of money and not paying taxes — you may have two or three kids — you don’t get any help at all. ”

“ Now I think we’re in the phase of, you know, hopefully vaccinating people, that we can move through this so, hopefully, one day, you know, we’ll be able to take down those Plexiglas shields and, you know, get rid of these masks that we no longer have to wear ”