US President-elect Biden speaks after meeting with transition coronavirus advisory board in Wilmington, Delaware
Credit: Reuters
US President-elect Joe Biden on Monday unveiled his coronavirus task force, which includes a British-born former US Surgeon General, as he told Americans: "Let’s wear a mask. Let’s get to work."
Mr Biden said getting the pandemic under control was a priority for his administration, pointing out projections showed the US could still lose 200,000 people before the vaccine was widely available, and there was a "dark winter" ahead.
Speaking in Wilmington, Delaware, he then offered a lengthy and impassioned plea to Americans to wear masks.
He said: "We could save tens of thousands of lives if everyone would just wear a mask for the next few months.
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris receive a briefing from the transition COVID-19 advisory board on November 09, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware.
Credit: Getty
"So please, I implore you, wear a mask. Do it for yourself. Do it for your neighbour. A mask is not a political statement but it is a good way to start pulling the country together.
"It won’t be forever but that’s how we’ll get our nation back."
Mr Biden was briefed by his newly formed team on Monday and spoke afterwards in Wilmington, Delaware, about what lies ahead.
The taskforce’s advisory board will include 10 experts, from immunologists and epidemiologists to biodefence experts and leading public health officials.
They will be led by three co-chairs, among them Dr Vivek Murthy, 43, the former US Surgeon General and son of immigrants from Karnataka, India, who moved to Huddersfield, England, in the mid-1970s.
When he was three, the family relocated to Miami, Florida, where Dr Murthy’s parents established their medical practice.
Dr Murthy went on to gain degrees from Harvard and Yale before founding the organisation Doctors For America.
As Vice Admiral of the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, he commanded a service of 6,600 public health officers dedicated to addressing public health threats from Ebola to Zika.
Dr Murthy, who became US Surgeon General under the then-president Barack Obama and vice president Joe Biden, was the youngest person to take up the post.
Mr Biden’s coronavirus board will also include Rick Bright, the whistleblower who says he was ousted from his post as head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (Barda), the agency charged with developing a vaccine, for raising concerns about coronavirus preparedness.
Mr Bright went on to warn Congress president Donald Trump had no "master plan" to fight the virus.
Huddersfield-born Dr Vivek Murthy named as co-chair of Mr Biden's new taskforced
Credit: Getty
Wasting no time in unveiling his own master plan after the election was called on Saturday, Mr Biden also laid out proposals to tackle Covid-19, such as securing funds for ramping up testing and tracing, acquiring additional protective equipment, and investing $25 billion (£19bn) in vaccine manufacturing and distribution.
The 77-year old Democrat spent much of the campaign criticising Mr Trump’s handling of the crisis and has vowed to listen to scientists to guide his own approach. The president shut out a number of leading infectious disease experts who expressed concern about his handling of the virus. He also threatened to fire Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has served under six administrations.
Mr Biden has said there is no time to spare to tackle the pandemic, with the country hurtling toward yet another grim milestone of 10 million cases, with over 9.9 million reported cases as of Sunday evening.
The number of new cases has topped 100,000 every 24 hours for several days running, despite Mr Trump’s claim the world’s biggest economy is "rounding the corner".
The Biden administration said he would work with local governors and mayors to mandate masks in public. The president-elect will also encourage the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to take a more active role in providing specific guidance to communities about when they need to shut down. Trump critics say the agency has been sidelined in favour of reopening the economy.
Mr Biden said he would also borrow a page from the Franklin Roosevelt administration and create something akin the War Production Board, which helped supervise the conversion of peacetime factories to plants that made military equipment and weapons.
Mr Biden has already said he will look to expand healthcare access by buttressing the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 law known as Obamacare that has enabled millions of Americans to obtain medical insurance.
The act will face a legal challenge at Supreme Court in Tuesday, brought by Republicans fighting hard to dismantle it.
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