Joe: I’m starting from scratch
He tears into Donald over Covid – and tells US: Wear masks till April
JOE Biden yesterday blasted Donald Trump’s failure to tackle coronavirus – and vowed to confront the disease head-on.
On his first full day in the job, the President issued a cascade of Covidfighting orders – including asking the US to ‘mask up’ until April.
And his team complained they were having to start from scratch after Mr Trump left office without a plan.
The virus – which has killed more than 400,000 Americans and left 16million out of work – will be the defining issue of Mr Biden’s first year in office.
Mr Trump’s disastrous handling of the crisis in his final months was one of the main reasons he lost the White House.
Mr Biden said: ‘We’re in a national emergency and it’s time we treated it like one.’ Taking aim at his predecessor, he added: ‘For the past year, we couldn’t rely on the federal government to act with the urgency and focus and coordination we needed. And we have seen the tragic cost of that failure.’
In a complete break from the previous administration, Mr Biden last night put scientists in charge. His communica
‘Tragic cost of failure’
tions chief Kate Bedingfield said the old leadership had failed to leave behind a proper vaccination programme, telling CNN there was ‘not a lot of detail’.
Other insiders said there was ‘no vaccine plan to speak of’ from the Trump team, who always downplayed the virus.
‘There is nothing for us to rework. We are going to have to build everything from scratch,’ one source said.
The Biden team had faced a lack of cooperation from the Trump White House since the election in November – meaning they fully discovered the scale of the challenge only this week.
Jeff Zients, Mr Biden’s Covid-19 tsar, said that ‘ what we’re inheriting from the Trump administration is so much worse than we could have imagined’.
Mr Biden wants to have 100million people vaccinated in his first 100 days in office. He also made mask-wearing compulsory in airports and on some planes, trains and buses. This could trigger legal action from states including Arizona, Florida and Georgia, which are staunchly against orders to cover up.
Mr Biden said asking the American people to ‘ mask up’ for the next 99 days, in a ‘patriotic’ act, could save 50,000 lives. Reopening schools with an increase in testing was also high on the priority list.
A croaky-voiced Mr Biden told the nation his approach would be based on ‘science, not politics, truth, not denial’. He added that ‘help is on the way,’ before warning: ‘This is a war-time undertaking.’
The President is set to abandon the Trump approach of promoting unqualified advisers who played down the pandemic. Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, joined him at a press conference yesterday.
Mr Biden said: ‘Things are going to continue to get worse before they get better...the death toll will likely top 500,000 next month...we didn’t get into this mess overnight and it’s going to take months to turn things around. There are moments in history when more is asked of a particular generation, more is asked of us as Americans, than other times. We are in that moment now. History’s going to measure whether we’re up to the task. I believe we are.’
Mr Biden’s virus strategy was outlined in ten pandemic-related executive orders and a 23-page document promising an ‘aggressive’ vaccination rollout.
Chemists and community centres will be used to increase the number of vaccine clinics. Despite Mr Biden’s criticism of the Trump team, the vaccine operation has been ramping up. An average of 912,000 jabs were recorded every day last week.
Mr Biden needs to increase this to a million a day and maintain it to meet his 100million goal.
Another challenge is the distribution – with 35.9million doses sent out but only 17.1million administered since vaccinations began last month. At the same time, some places such as New York are closing vaccination centres because they have run out of stock.
Dr Fauci said that he was ‘fairly confident’ they would meet the 100million target.
Mr Biden said he would invoke the Defence Production Act – which allows the state to force firms to produce goods that are of national priority – to make up for shortages of syringes and masks.
Travellers will be required to provide a negative test before arriving in the US and quarantine once on American soil.