Joe Biden called on the Trump administration to take ‘urgent action’ on the rising coronavirus cases around the country as he blasted the president’s response as ‘woefully lacking’.
The President-elect warned on Friday night that an ‘immediate federal response’ is needed as the pandemic is ‘accelerating right now’ and ‘does not respect dates on the calendar’.
His comments came after President Trump delivered an update on ‘Operation Warp Speed’, his administration’s effort to aid the development of a vaccine, from the Rose Garden on Friday afternoon.
Trump claimed during the briefing that a vaccine could be available to the entire population as early as April and stated that his administration would never be enforcing a lockdown, despite the growing number of cases nationwide.
Joe Biden (right) called on the Trump administration to take ‘urgent action’ on the rising coronavirus cases around the country as he blasted the president’s response as ‘woefully lacking’. Trump (pictured left) has delivered an update from the Rose Garden on Friday
Joe Biden expressed his concern of the rising coronavirus cases around the country
The former Vice President warned that ‘urgent action is needed today’
New infections across the country hit a record high for the third consecutive day with 153,496 cases on Thursday, however deaths have not spiked in the same way.
‘I am alarmed by the surge in reported COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations, and fatalities,’ Biden said in a tweet Friday night.
‘This crisis demands a robust and immediate federal response which has been woefully lacking.
‘I am the president-elect, but will not be president until next year,’ the former Vice President warned.
‘COVID-19 does not respect dates on the calendar, it is accelerating right now. Urgent action is needed today, now, by the current administration.’
Earlier this week, one of Biden’s coronavirus advisor revealed that he believes shutting down businesses nationally for four to six weeks could prevent the US from entering ‘COVID hell’.
Dr Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said Wednesday a national lockdown may be the best way to keep hospitalizations and deaths down across the country until a vaccine can be distributed.
The scientist is one of the public health experts the Biden transition team has appointed to its advisory panel fueling speculation the president-elect will follow his guidance over the coronavirus response.
Yet the remarks have angered the anti-lockdown movement with Trump on Friday insisting that no businesses would be forced to close while he remains president.
‘Ideally, we won’t go to a lockdown. I will not go, this administration will not be going to a lockdown,’ he said.
‘Hopefully the, the – uh – whatever happens in the future – who knows which administration will be. I guess time will tell.’
Trump said on Friday that he expects an emergency use authorization for Pfizer’s vaccine ‘extremely soon’, but claimed that it wouldn’t be heading to states such as New York where he has an ongoing feud with Governor Andrew Cuomo.
A vaccine appears imminent following Pfizer’s announcement earlier this week that its trial showed its treatment was 90 percent effective.
The US drugmaker said it expects to apply for FDA approval next week, which could mean vaccinations could start in December.
Trump delivering an update on ‘Operation Warp Speed’ in the Rose Garden of the White House in D.C. on Friday in which he promised a vaccine for the entire population by April
On Thursday ahead of Biden’s warning, incoming White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said that the former Vice President will appoint a COVID czar as soon as he enters the Oval Office.
‘As a candidate for president, Joe Biden promised that he would put an official in charge of the COVID response in the White House. He will do that,’ Klain said on MSNBC’s ‘The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.’
Klain said the Trump administration’s refusal to start the transition process hasn’t hindered the Biden-Harris effort yet.
But he pointed to the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, as something that could be further bungled if there’s a rocky transition.
‘As you said at the outset of the program, we’re in a COVID crisis,’ Klain said. ‘Right now, right now, there are officials inside the Department of Health and Human Services who are busy planning a vaccination campaign for the months of February and March, when Joe Biden will be president.’
‘And so the sooner we get our transition experts into meetings with the folks who are planning the vaccination campaign, the more seamless the transition … can be,’ Klain added.
Klain was the so-called ‘Ebola czar’ during President Barack Obama’s administration.
America is currently experiencing a growing surge in infections with the number of daily COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations hitting record highs this week.
New infections across the country hit a record high for the third consecutive day with 153,496 cases on Thursday. Daily cases have repeatedly surged to all-time highs of more than 120,000 per day over the past week.
Hospitalizations also reached a single-day high with 67,096 patients currently being treated across the country.
Deaths, however, dropped slightly with 919 American dying on Thursday.
It comes after the death toll spiked a day earlier to 1,893, which is the highest number of fatalities since May 8 during the initial peak of the outbreak.
That surge was enough to push the seven-day rolling average of daily deaths back over the 1,000 mark after managing to stay below it for the past three months.
The country is facing what health experts say will be a dark winter because of the onset of cold weather and crowded holiday gatherings, as well as a disregard for mask-wearing and other precautions.
The crisis is deepening at overwhelmed hospitals across the country with some reaching, or nearing, capacity.
Eighteen states, most of which are in the Midwest, have reported record daily highs for COVID-19 patients in hospitals this week.
More than a dozen states have doubled their COVID-19 case loads in the last 14 days compared with this previous two-week period.
In total, 10.5 million people in the United States have been infected with coronavirus and 242,500 have died.