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The new president of the United States, Joe Biden, warned this Thursday that the death toll from Covid-19 in his country will probably exceed 500,000 in February, and acknowledged that it will take months to “turn around” the strategy pursued by his predecessor, Donald Trump.
“Things are going to keep getting worse before they get better”, Biden said during a ceremony at the White House, in which he signed a dozen measures and decrees to accelerate the response to the pandemic.
“The death toll will probably exceed 500,000 next month (…). It is going to take us months to turn this situation around,” added the president.
The United States surpassed the barrier of 400,000 deaths from covid-19 last Tuesday and has added another 8,000 deaths in the following 48 hours, to exceed 408,000, according to the independent count from Johns Hopkins University.
Biden’s forecast coincides with that of the Institute for Health Metrics and Assessments (IHME) at the University of Washington, which estimates that, if the current trend continues, the United States will exceed half a million deaths on February 19. and March will begin with more than 521,000 deaths from the disease.
“Over the past year, we have not been able to rely on the federal government to act with the urgency, focus and coordination that we need, and we have seen the tragic cost of that failure,” said Biden.
The new president announced a new strategy to deal with the pandemic like a “war” which includes measures to accelerate the rate of vaccination, a campaign whose implementation he described as “a deplorable failure.”
Among other measures, Biden signed a decree confirming that the United States will require Those who enter the country from abroad get tested for covid-19 before flying, and quarantine afterwards. The first of those requirements was already announced last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Another of his measurements orders the use of masks in airports and in most planes, trains, boats and buses of medium and long distance, something his predecessor, Donald Trump, refused to do.
Biden also called for the Defense Production Act, legislation adopted in 1950 in response to the Korean War, to mobilize the industrial sector and accelerate the manufacture of masks, respirators and other equipment against the pandemic.
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