New Delhi: ‘More Americans are at the risk of dying from coronavirus, if we don’t coordinate’, US President-elect Joe Biden told Donald Trump, urging him to allow officials to work with the incoming administration on developing a coordinated response to the COVID-19 pandemic which has claimed 1,325,750 lives worldwide.
Biden made the remarks yesterday in Wilmington, Delaware while responding to a question on Trump refusing to concede the election and the outgoing administration not co-operating in the transition process. According to media projections, Democrat Biden has won the November 3 presidential election. However, Trump, a Republican, has alleged election fraud and mounted legal fights in a number of battleground states.
He asserted,”A vaccine is important. It’s of little use until you’re vaccinated. So, how do we get the vaccine, how do we get over 300 million Americans vaccinated? What’s the game plan? It’s a huge, huge, huge undertaking to get it done, prioritise those greatest in need and working our way through, and also cooperate with the World Health Organization and the rest of the world in dealing with this.”
“Trump administration say they have this ‘Warp Speed’ program that not only dealt with getting vaccines, but also how to distribute this. If we have to wait until January 20th (day of Presidential inauguration) to start that planning, it puts us behind over a month, month-and-a-half. And so, it’s important that it be done, that there be coordination now, now or as rapidly as we can get that done”, Biden added.
As of now, Biden said his action plan is to deal with every individual, organisation in the country from business to labour, Republicans and Democrats, to try to pull together a serious and consistent plan so that he is ready on day one with everything from staffing to ultimately naming cabinet members to moving along on coordinating with business and labour, the COVID-19 outbreak.
“My message is I will work with you. I understand a lot of your reluctance because of the way the president operates, but I’ve been in contact with and will be in contact with more of them as we move along. And if it has to wait until January 20th to get–to actually become operational, that’s a shame but it may be that’s the only way to get it done”, he stated further.
Notably, the US is the worst-hit country with the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 11,197,791 and 247,142, respectively.