“This historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country and giving people in this nation, working people, middle class folks, people who built the country, a fighting chance,” said the United States President Joe Bide as he signed into law the historic $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief as passed by the Congress.

“That’s what the essence of it is.”

The House of Representatives passed the Senate amended version of the bill Wednesday, March 10, 2021 and jointly passed it to President Joe Biden for signature, happening 51 days in office.

In a monitored CNN report, “key features of the plan include up to $1,400-per-person stimulus payments that will send money to about 90% of households, a $300 federal boost to weekly jobless benefits, an expansion of the child tax credit of up to $3,600 per child and $350 billion in state and local aid, as well as billions of dollars for K-12 schools to help students return to the classroom, to assist small businesses hard-hit by the pandemic and for vaccine research, development and distribution.

Later on, Biden will deliver his first prime-time address to the nation to mark the one-year anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic shutdown.

Biden’s speech will focus on the lives lost to the pandemic, the sacrifices the American people have made and will lay out next steps in tackling the pandemic, according to a White House official. Biden will “level with the American people about what is still required to defeat the virus and provide a hopeful vision of what is possible if we all come together,” the official said.

More than 529,400 Americans have died from Covid-19 as of Thursday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins University.

As the Biden administration ramps up vaccination efforts across the nation, officials have stressed that funding from Congress in needed to get the vaccines into the arms of every American. Biden’s Covid-19 relief package provides $14 billion for researching, developing, distributing, administering and strengthening confidence in vaccines.

More than 95.7 million Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered across the nation, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are three Covid-19 vaccines that have received emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.”