US President-elect Joe Biden.

Washington, November 20

US President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday ruled out a nationwide shutdown to fight Covid-19, but insisted on a national mask mandate as part of the efforts to prevent the spread of the virus.

“No national shutdown because every region, area and community can be different. And so there is no circumstance which I can see that would require a total national shutdown. I think that would be counterproductive, but there are constraints in which the degree to which businesses can be open,” he told reporters in Wilmington, Delaware, after a meeting with a bipartisan group of governors. Biden said he would follow the science. “I am not going to shut down the economy period. I am going to shut down the virus,” he asserted.

“The church I go to, my Catholic Church, they do not allow more than 40 per cent people to enter. Those are rational decisions. It is not shutting down everything; it is calibrating based on what the threat is," he explained.

Biden said he discussed the implementation of a national mask mandate in the meeting with the governors.

“Ten governors, Democrat and Republican, have imposed masking requirements and recognised the need for universal masking. It is not a political statement. It is a patriotic duty,” he said. — PTI

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