#Biden needs to think bigger on vaccines — D-Day bigger

As the novel coronavirus mutates, it’s becoming more contagious than the version that invaded the United States a year ago. A masked trip to the grocery store is becoming riskier.

With cases and deaths spiking, people are upset. They’re spending hours on Web sites and hotlines struggling in vain to get vaccine appointments.

President Biden’s vaccine-distribution plan, which he announced Friday, doesn’t offer them much hope. Biden said he will open 100 federal vaccine sites in school gyms, community centers and stadiums the first month.

That’s for the entire nation.

We are in a war with a deadly disease. Biden’s plan is like fighting back with a pea shooter.

Almost as many Americans have died from COVID in the last year as were killed in all the years of World War II. It’s time to mount a D-Day-scale response.

The US needs to vaccinate 1.8 million people a day to achieve herd immunity by July. That’s far more than Biden’s goal of 1 million shots a day. Dodger Stadium can host 12,000 vaccinations a day. So 150 stadium-size sites are needed, vaccinating round the clock.

To accommodate the elderly, many venues should be first come, first served. Asking 80-year-olds to navigate complicated sites to make appointments is preposterously impractical.

To fight COVID, Biden also needs to defy the open-borders flank of his party and make it clear that caravans of Central American migrants won’t be allowed into the nation. Last week, a Biden transition official said it, but Biden himself needs to say it — forcefully enough to be heard below the Rio Grande. Air travelers to the US have to show a negative test before boarding, quarantine on arrival, then get retested. Why should migrants be an exception?

Biden made fighting COVID the centerpiece of his campaign, yet even as he takes office, he is short on details. The virus isn’t waiting.

“Ominous” is how Dr. Anthony Fauci describes the emerging strains. A newly identified variant in Brazil can reinfect people who have already had the disease. Britain is so fearful, it blocked all flights from South America.

Meanwhile, a British strain that spreads fast, because it causes more virus in the nose, has invaded America. Eighteen cases have been detected in New York. It’s 50 to 70 percent more contagious than the original virus, and it will become the dominant strain by March, predicts the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A highly infectious, homegrown US strain is also causing cases to surge, according to Southern Illinois University researchers.

Federal authorities, including Fauci and Biden’s pick to head the CDC, Rochelle Walensky, predict they will have enough vaccine supply. The federal government purchased 400 million doses in ­total of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in advance, enough to vaccinate 200 million people. Both vaccines require two shots. Johnson & Johnson will seek FDA authorization for its vaccine by March. And a vaccine by AstraZeneca isn’t far behind.

Why, then, have only a tiny 3.7 percent of Americans received a shot? Blame state and local pols who dithered instead of preparing mass vaccination sites before the first doses were shipped in mid-December.

Now, several states, including New York, are complaining about delivery logjams. Another problem for Biden to solve.

Lives hinge on it.

Finally, Biden has to keep the ­focus on the United States, not succumb to his party’s globalist sentiments. On Tuesday, Secretary of State-designee Antony Blinken said the Biden administration would participate in a World Health Organization project that commits rich nations to develop and distribute scarce vaccine supplies to ­developing countries. It’s a bad idea that would jeopardize America’s ability to reach herd ­immunity and return our lives to normal.

With the virus growing more dangerous, Biden needs to recognize the urgency of getting the nation vaccinated — and fast.