WILMINGTON – US president-elect Joe Biden yesterday said he will not order a nationwide shutdown to fight the Covid-19 pandemic despite a surge in cases.
States and cities have been imposing their own restrictions, including home confinement, the closure of indoor dining and a limit on gatherings as infections soar across the country.
“There’s no circumstance which I can see that would require a total national shutdown. I think that would be counterproductive,” Biden, who takes office on January 20 next year, told reporters.
He said, however, that rules for when and how businesses and other establishments can open will have to be calibrated based on the threat in the area in question, noting the varying levels of spread throughout the US.
The country has now registered more than 251,000 fatalities and 11.6 million reported cases, according to a running tally by Johns Hopkins University, by far the highest reported national death toll.
The surge in infections has alarmed authorities to the point that the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention urged Americans not to travel for next week’s Thanksgiving holiday.
Thanksgiving is the busiest US holiday in terms of travel. As it falls on a Thursday, many Americans take the Friday off work and make a long weekend of it to go see family in other states.
President Donald Trump has been muted in his public reactions to the surge in cases, staying largely out of the public eye as he presses his unsubstantiated fraud claims in the election he lost to Biden.
Vice-President Mike Pence, who heads the White House pandemic task force, did not mention mask-wearing or Thanksgiving travel during a briefing yesterday.
“America has never been more prepared to combat this virus than we are today.
“This administration and our president does not support another national lockdown. And, we do not support closing schools.”
Trump has consistently downplayed the impact of the virus and its seriousness, urging Americans that the situation is improving. – AFP, November 20, 2020
