Biden’s visit to the facility where millions of COVID-19 vaccines have been produced is his first to Michigan as president.
Joe Biden returns to Michigan on Thursday for his first trip to the state as president, when he’s scheduled to tour a Pfizer facility in Portage. The visit underscores the importance of COVID-19 vaccines to the state, country and Biden’s tenure: the safe and quick distribution of effective vaccines means a potential return to normalcy and all of the corresponding economic and societal impacts that entails. Here’s what we know about the trip: While the White House had yet to release specific details on the event as of Wednesday afternoon, the president typically takes a few questions from the media during such visits. It’s unclear whether the president will announce any new policy or plan during the trip. Biden continues to call on Congress to pass his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 plan that includes additional funding for vaccinations along with $1,400 stimulus checks for people who earn below a certain income threshold. We do not know for sure, but FAA records appear to indicate he’ll visit the facility some time Thursday afternoon. The trip is his second to the Midwest this week, following a CNN townhall on Tuesday in Milwaukee. Pfizer, which teamed up with German-based biotechnology company BioNTech, created one of the two coronavirus vaccines now approved for emergency use in the United States.
