Joe Biden and Corona: this is what the president-elect plans in the fight against Covid-19

126,742 new known infections in 24 hours. The day Joe Biden announced his victory in the race for the 46th President of the United States of America, the country groaned under a new record for corona infections. Once again. Data from Johns Hopkins University for Saturday shows more than 120,000 new cases per day for the third day in a row.

The Sars-CoV-2 pathogen has already been detected in more than 9.9 million of the 330 million inhabitants of the country. The United States accounts for one fifth of all global infections and more than 237,000 Americans have died in connection with the pandemic.

Biden has announced that he will make the fight against Corona a political priority and will once again listen to the recommendations of science. For one thing, that’s a easy peasy, something you don’t have to think about seriously. On the other hand, after months of denial and hesitation under still President Trump, it’s still remarkable news.

On Monday, Biden wants to present an expert council to contain the corona pandemic. The body will be headed by Vivek Murthy and David Kessler. Murthy was the US government’s chief health officer from 2014 to 2017, and Kessler once headed the FDA. Both experts, he said on Biden’s team, had been on the Democratic side since March, as well as Yale University health expert Marcella Nunez-Smith.

Free tests and shots for everyone

How will the new government’s strategy against Corona be, there are already at least some concrete indications. The “Biden-Harris-Covid Plan” contains, among other things, in various places the reference that decisions in the field of public health should be made by public health professionals and not by politicians.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a health authority known for its expertise in infection control but sidelined by Trump, will develop new guidelines: What containment measures make sense in what phase of the pandemic? There is also the question of when schools and stores will open or close. From the perspective of epidemiologists, opening the economy too early in the spring had also ensured that the number of infections in the United States had never dropped as much as in Europe in the meantime.

In the future, the public should be better provided with the most important data on the current situation, including daily updates on the number of tests performed and the number of free and occupied intensive care beds. Likely behind this is a desire for the government to once again be perceived as a credible source of information about the pandemic.

Additionally, Biden’s team plans to massively expand testing capabilities. There must be at least ten direct-access, mobile test centers in each state. Testing for Americans should be regular, reliable, and free, hence the promise. There are also plans to invest in the development of new testing technologies for home and instant tests, for example.

Around 100,000 workers will support the efforts of health authorities, among other things, in following up the contacts of infected people, but also in the distribution of information on vaccines, for example. In addition, state control of the pandemic economy will be strengthened, for example, to promote the production of vaccines and protective clothing.

Once approved, the vaccines will be available to all Americans at no charge.

Biden’s advisers have announced that they will once again support their country’s active role in the World Health Organization (WHO). This is where the international fight against pandemics is coordinated, as well as the distribution of the next vaccines to the poorest countries. Trump wanted to remove his country from the organization that he saw dominated by China. Internationally, after Biden’s election victory, Washington is now trying to stay. German Health Minister Jens Spahn has stated that the fight against the pandemic also “depends on the participation of the US or not.” Biden could persist in the WHO without Congress.

Health expert Krutika Kuppalli of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston is examining the political response to pandemics. In an interview with SPIEGEL, he praised Biden’s proposals: “He has a plan. The current government never had one.” From his point of view, the task force experts are also a good choice, a “large group of people” comes together.

And it’s a good idea for Biden to rely on more control from Washington, says Kuppalli: “So far we’ve had 50 states that have done 50 different things. But we need a uniform approach.” However, it is important to bring members of the country’s various groups with you, including the 70 million Trump voters who apparently did not consider Corona to be a major problem.

Without defeating the virus, “you can’t repair the economy, restore dynamism, or enjoy the best moments in life,” Biden announced in his victory speech in his hometown of Wilmington. He also stated that on the day of his inauguration, on January 20, he was already launching an action plan to overcome the corona crisis: “I want everyone to know: we are going to have our plan to have the virus under control in our first day”. put into effect, “Biden said.

But that’s exactly the problem: Donald Trump, who has yet to admit his electoral defeat, has been in office for more than 70 days. During this period, despite all that can be expected, the pandemic is likely to worsen. Probably massive. For weeks and months, the current president has been claiming that the fight against the pathogen is practically won. He ignored his scientific advisers, such as Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, and ridiculed their warnings. The White House itself has become the focus of the corona outbreak. More recently it emerged that Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, had also been infected.

Expert warns of 100,000 more deaths, only until the inauguration of Biden

Many experts are “concerned that now that Biden has won, the Trump administration will adopt a scorched earth approach,” warns Saskia Popescu, an epidemiologist at the University of Arizona. “It’s going to be very, very scary.” “I don’t want to overlook it – it looks bad,” says Nahid Bhadelia of the Boston University School of Medicine. Particularly problematic for the development of the coming weeks and months: family visits at Christmas are likely to re-spread the pathogen en masse throughout the country.

Without significant action, warns Ashish Jha of the Brown University School of Public Health, another 100,000 deaths for Biden’s inauguration day alone would be “a conservative estimate.” The Trump administration “basically threw in the towel” in the fight against the pandemic.

Biden and his team had nothing but “moral and social power,” Jha said, until they took office on January 20. On twitter estimates that the actual number of new corona infections in the US is currently between 300,000 and 400,000 per day. As proof of this, he cites the growing rate of positive test results, which is currently around nine percent.

According to Jha, the country is not at the mercy of development. “We must not accept that the Trump team will do nothing. We are paying them. We have to find ways to get them to do more.” Also, Congress must make more money available to states for testing. These, in turn, would have to monitor more people to detect the virus. And everyone can do something too, according to Jha: Everyone should wear a mask and, if possible, avoid indoor gatherings, whether in private homes or restaurants.

Biden, it is said, could try to get the governors of as many states as possible to make wearing masks mandatory before taking office. Because this question is not necessarily decided in Washington. There, at least, you can learn the rules of federal authorities or local public transport.