Senior advisers to Joe Biden have also stressed the need to control the spiraling epidemic now.
Washington:
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s chief aide Ron Klain on Sunday urged Congress to embrace bipartisan financial relief for COVID-19 as an increase in the number of cases that have shattered U.S. records and strained hospitals across the country. country, and called for immediate action to allow his team to coordinate with the outgoing Trump. administration.
Other high-level Biden advisers have also stressed the need to control the spiraling epidemic now, even before Biden takes office on January 20, saying the next few weeks are critical and warning health systems premises were at a tipping point.
“We are in a very dangerous time,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, member of Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told NBC News “Meet the Press ” program.
Unless action is taken now, “we’re going to see those numbers increase dramatically,” Osterholm warned. “Our future is in our hands … at least for the next three weeks.”
New cases across the country have reached daily records in recent days, more than doubling the number of single-day infections reported during the previous U.S. peak in mid-July. The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States since the start of the pandemic is approaching 11 million, with 245,581 related deaths, the most in the world. The number of COVID-19 patients in US hospitals has also reached an all-time high in recent days.
Klain, Biden’s new White House chief of staff, said Democrats and Republicans urgently need to fund additional relief given the push that has placed new restrictions in many states to curb the spread virus.
“This could be a prime example of bipartisan action after the election,” Klain told NBC in a separate interview.
He said Biden spoke with Democratic Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer about increased coronavirus aid, but not Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, who has so far refused to publicly recognize Biden as president-elect.
Klain added that Biden’s team planned to meet with Pfizer Inc, which last week released positive initial data on its investigational COVID-19 vaccine, and other drugmakers this week, but is still awaiting clearance from the federal government to officially begin transition efforts between its pandemic advisers and the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
The incoming team has been hampered by the federal government’s refusal to approve the transition efforts, which affect coronavirus coordination, national security and other pressing issues, he said.
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
