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WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) – To make the coronavirus resurgence his immediate priority, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden will announce a 12-member task force on Monday to tackle the pandemic.
Biden spent much of his election campaign criticizing President Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic, which has now killed 237,000 people in the United States. The United States recorded a record number of new infections last week, with a total number of cases close to 10 million.
After four days of uncertainty as votes were counted in key states, Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania on Saturday put him above the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes he needed to win the presidency. Trump has not relented and has promised to challenge the result in court.
The coronavirus task force will be tasked with developing a plan to contain the disease once Biden takes office in January. It will be headed by three co-chairs, former surgeon general Vivek Murthy, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner David Kessler and Yale University’s Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, according to two people familiar with the matter.
“I will spare no effort, no compromise, to change this pandemic,” Biden said in his victory speech Saturday in Wilmington.
The task force’s announcement will kick off a busy week in which Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will move forward with the presidential transition on several fronts, and Biden will seriously dedicate himself to the task of building his administration before his 20th. January inauguration.
On Sunday, his transition team will launch a new website, BuildBackBetter.com, and a new social media identifier, @ transition46, to provide the public with information about the transfer.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; written by James Oliphant; edited by Frances Kerry)
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