Amid a spike in COVID-19 cases in the country, President-elect Joe Biden said in a Thanksgiving address on Wednesday (Nov. 25) that the country has to try to slow the growth of the virus.
“We owe it to the doctors and the nurses and other frontline workers, care workers, who’ve risked their lives, some lost their lives…we owe that to our fellow citizens, who need access to hospital beds and care to fight this disease. We owe it to one another. It’s literally our patriotic duty as Americans,” Biden said.
Biden said those efforts entail wearing a mask, maintaining social distancing and restricting the sizes of groups, noting that “until we have a vaccine, these are the most effective tools to combat the virus.”
Biden said that he and Jill would be spending the holiday at their home in Delaware with their daughter and son in law, while the rest of the family will be doing the same in small groups.
He noted that he knows how hard it is to forgo family traditions, but that it is very important to do so.
The president-elect also pledged to take steps to fight the coronavirus as soon as he takes office in January.
“Starting on day one of my presidency, we will take steps that will change the course of this disease,” Biden said.
Biden said those initiatives will include more testing, more protective gear and clear guidance, noting that the federal government has extensive powers to combat COVID-19.
“I will use all of those powers…but the federal government can’t do this alone. Each of us has a responsibility in our own lives [to] do what we can do to slow the virus.”
The news comes as Biden said that the country needs its workers to return to work by getting COVID-19 under control.
“We’re going into a very dark winter. Things are going to get much tougher before they get easier. And that requires sparing no effort to fight COVID so that we can open our businesses safely, resume our lives and put this pandemic behind us,” Biden said during a press conference on Monday (Nov. 16).
On Nov. 9, the world got news that Pfizer and BioNTech had successfully finished Phase 3 trials of a COVID-19 vaccine on 43,000 individuals – and achieved a 90 percent effectiveness rate.
A week following Pfizer’s announcement, Moderna announced that its vaccine has a 94.5 percent efficacy rate.
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