Biden accuses Trump of giving up on COVID-19 fight

WASHINGTON – US presidential hopeful Joe Biden on Sunday accused Donald Trump of giving up on the fight against COVID-19 as the president faced a new outbreak on his team, a surge in infections across the country and an uneasy admission of your chief of staff.

Nine days before the vote, and with reported deaths from coronavirus in the US surpassing the dismal total of 225,000, Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, admitted on Sunday that “we are not going to control the pandemic, that He said it could only be done through “therapeutic vaccines and other mitigation areas.”

The control was not practical, he said, because “it is a contagious virus like the flu.”

Biden immediately took advantage of the Meadows comment when he again criticized the administration for the virus, which has set records for new cases in recent days, with nearly 90,000 on Saturday.

“It was a heartfelt recognition of what President Trump’s strategy has clearly been since the beginning of this crisis – to wave the white flag of defeat and hope that, by ignoring it, the virus will simply disappear,” the former vice president said in a statement.

“It hasn’t and it won’t.”

Trump on Sunday continued a frenzied campaign pace for a second term in the White House, with stops in New Hampshire and Maine.

His repeated efforts to downplay the severity of the pandemic or divert voters’ attention elsewhere have been met with a constant trickle of bad news about the virus.

The latest example was Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, and several of his aides reportedly tested positive for Covid, increasing the list of management personnel who contracted the virus.

– ‘Biggest failure’ –

Campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said Sunday that Pence would continue, with the approval of doctors, to tour the country in the final days of the campaign. Both Pence and his wife tested negative, he said.

“The people on his staff are under quarantine and he relies on the very strong medical advice from the White House medical unit,” Murtaugh told Fox News.

The decision by Pence, who heads the White House coronavirus task force, to ignore standing advice from health experts to self-quarantine, drew criticism from Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris, who also criticized to Meadows for comparing the coronavirus to the flu.

“This is the biggest failure of any presidential administration in the history of the United States,” he said.

On Sunday, Trump once again tried to put aside his crush on Covid bad news, telling his supporters in New Hampshire:

“We are turning around, we are rounding the curve, we have the vaccines, we have everything, we are rounding the curve. Even without the vaccines, we are rounding out the turn. “

Vaccines for the virus have not yet been approved and health experts are warning of thousands more deaths in the coming months.

Trump and his aides have repeatedly attacked Biden’s energy levels and what they say is his poor record of accomplishment.

Murtaugh criticized Biden for his light campaign schedule, saying the Democratic challenger was “feeling the heat” and “took five of the six days off” before the last presidential debate on Thursday.

The comments stood in stark contrast to the hectic pace the 74-year-old Trump has maintained, while Biden has set a more cautious course, speaking less frequently and with smaller, socially estranged groups.

Biden, 77, planned on Sunday just to participate in a virtual concert, his campaign said.

But his deputy campaign manager defended him vigorously, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “we are running an incredibly tough campaign.”

“The difference between what we are doing and what Donald Trump is doing,” Kate Bedingfield said, is that “we are doing it safely.”

Before the November 3 election, and with more than 57 million Americans casting early votes, both campaigns are struggling to present their final arguments.

On Saturday, an energized Biden and former President Barack Obama accused Trump of mishandling the pandemic.

“Donald Trump is not going to suddenly protect us all. You can’t even take the basic steps to protect yourself, ”Obama said, referring to Trump’s hospitalization for Covid-19 three weeks ago.

But the president has continued to project confidence.

Insisting that he will be the best steward of the nation’s economy, he told supporters in North Carolina: “This election is a choice between a Trump super recovery and a Biden depression.”

– Grim polls for Trump –

“Covid, covid, covid,” Trump said Saturday, complaining that the media was obsessed with the problem.

Biden’s answer: Trump himself should be more obsessed with the problem.

“Donald Trump said, and keeps saying, ‘He’s leaving. We’re learning to live with it, ‘”Biden said Saturday in his critically ill native Pennsylvania.

“We are not learning to live with it. You are asking us to learn to die with him. “

Biden has held a stable lead of around 10 points in national polls and a narrower lead in battle states.

But both Republicans and Democrats are wary of the polls after Trump’s astonishing surprise in 2016 when he defeated Hillary Clinton.

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