Biden convenes pandemic task force
Asks Americans to wear masks, save lives
WIL MINGTON, DEL . • U.S. president-elect Joe Biden implored Americans on Monday to wear protective masks to combat the pandemic, appealing to their patriotism, as he convened a task force to devise a blueprint for tackling the public health crisis.
“We could save tens of thousands of lives if everyone would just wear a mask for the next few months. Not Democratic or Republican lives. American lives,” Biden said in Wilmington, Del. “I implore you. Wear a mask. Do it for yourself. Do it for your neighbour. A mask is not a political statement.”
The pandemic has killed more than 237,000 Americans and thrown millions out of work.
Biden, set to take office on Jan. 20, conferred by video with his 13-member task force, headed by former U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner David Kessler and Yale University healthcare equity expert Marcella Nunez-Smith.
The president-elect labelled as “great news” Pfizer Inc.'s announcement Monday that its experimental COVID-19 vaccine was more than 90 per cent effective.
But Biden said it would be “many more months before there is widespread vaccination” in the U.S. and underscored the importance of wearing protective masks and social distancing.
The U.S. has recently been registering record-high infection numbers. Mask wearing has become a political issue in the U.S., with Trump mocking Biden for wearing a mask during the campaign and many conservatives contending masks infringe upon individual freedoms.
“The goal is to get back to normal as fast as possible,” Biden said. “And masks are critical in doing that. It won't be forever. But that's how we'll get our nation back up to speed economically, so we can go back to celebrating birthdays and holidays together, so we can attend sporting events together, so that we can get back to the lives and connections we shared before the pandemic.”
Housing Secretary Ben Carson on Monday became the latest close Trump associate to test positive for the virus, just days after White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows also tested positive.
Biden said his team will focus on making rapid testing widely available and building a corps of contact-tracers to track and curb the pathogen's spread and prioritize vulnerable populations. Biden said his administration would work to get an approved vaccine “distributed as quickly as possible to as many Americans as possible, free of charge.”