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WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Joe Biden said Thursday that he would publicly take a coronavirus vaccine to demonstrate his safety to the public and vowed to retain the nation’s top adviser on the pandemic, Anthony. Fauci, when you take office. next month.
“People have lost faith in the vaccine’s ability to work,” Biden told CNN in an interview that aired Thursday.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force, met with Biden’s advisers on the pandemic earlier in the day. In the interview, Biden said he asked Fauci to remain as chief medical adviser.
In the interview with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Biden asked Congress to pass the $ 908 billion bill proposed by moderates in the US Senate, but said it should be seen as a “start” to provide relief. during the pandemic.
“People are really suffering,” he said. “They are scared to death.”
Trump and the Republican National Committee said Thursday they had raised $ 207.5 million since the Nov.3 election. Trump has urged his supporters to send money to fund his legal efforts to reverse his loss to Biden. So far, the efforts have been unsuccessful.
Having not relented, Trump has made no commitment to attend Biden’s January 20 inauguration. Biden said that Trump’s presence would be important “to demonstrate at the end of this chaos that he has created that there is a peaceful transfer of power, with the competing parties, standing there, shaking hands and moving on.”
Trump has at times criticized Fauci’s insistence on aggressive measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, which has now claimed 273,000 lives in the United States.
Deaths in the United States from the coronavirus pandemic have surpassed 2,000 for two days in a row as the most dangerous season of the year approaches. Nearly 200,000 new cases were reported in the U.S. Wednesday, with hospitalizations approaching 100,000 patients.
Pfizer Inc’s vaccine has already been approved by regulatory authorities in Britain, while the US Food and Drug Administration plans to decide whether to do so in an emergency following an advisory panel meeting on 10 December. The vaccines could be distributed in the United States almost immediately afterwards.
However, Fauci was critical of the approval process in the UK. “They ran around the corner of the marathon and joined him on the last mile,” he told CBS News. “They really rushed to approve that approval.” He later apologized, however, for his criticism and told the BBC that he meant “not to judge” the British process.
CORONAVIRUS TEAM
In the CNN interview, Biden said that as president, he will order masks to be worn in federal buildings and transportation hubs. He said he will ask Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days of his administration.
Biden’s comments on vaccination after three former presidents, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said they would publicly receive the coronavirus vaccine as a way to demonstrate their safety.
As part of his response effort, Biden will appoint former Obama administration official Jeffrey Zients as his coronavirus coordinator at the White House, a Biden ally told Reuters.
Politico reported that Biden’s adviser, Vivek Murthy, would return to his role as surgeon general, a position he held under Obama, but with a broader portfolio as the pandemic spreads across the country.
Politico also said that Marcella Nunez-Smith, co-chair of Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, would play a key role in the incoming administration’s pandemic response, focused on disparities.
Zients, a wealthy businessman who has moved between the public sector and US corporations, will oversee the gigantic and unprecedented operation to distribute hundreds of millions of doses of the new vaccine in the United States, coordinating efforts among multiple federal agencies.
In recent weeks, Zients has served as something of a liaison to the pandemic with governors and state officials, frequently joining calls to share data and discuss concerns, according to two sources familiar with the calls.
Biden said Brian Deese, who helped lead Obama’s efforts to rescue the auto industry during the 2009 financial crisis, would head the National Economic Council.
Trump’s push to reverse the election results saw its latest setback Thursday when the Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to take a case brought against election officials in the battlefield state.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Doina Chiacu; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Makini Brice, Simon Lewis, and Eric Beech; Written by Sonya Hepinstall and James Oliphant; Edited by Alistair Bell, Tom Brown, Peter Cooney, and Simon Cameron-Moore)
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