The social distancing period continues until the end of the month and President Donald Trump has expressed his desire to reopen the country by May despite the concerns of health experts and officials towards the pandemic which still affects thousands of people. Former vice president Joe Biden has in turn laid out his approach in reopening the country as safe as possible.
In a piece the presumptive Democratic nominee wrote for the New York Times via CNN, Biden detailed how he would approach the step of safely reopening the United States and bringing Americans back to work and out of self-isolation or self-quarantine following the pandemic. The former vice president said that social distancing measures would still be in effect but called for mass testing as well as taking advantage of the “Defense Production Act” in its full capacity.
Biden also placed emphasis on hospitals being prepared in case of flareups of the coronavirus at any time when the economy is running again. Biden reiterated his previous comments of listening to what the experts are saying and follow their advice as well as what he told President Donald Trump during their phonecall the previous week about the government’s response to the pandemic.
The former vice president has often criticized the Trump administration for their slow response that resulted in hundreds of thousands of Americans getting infected and tens of thousands of Americans dying from it. Biden noted that the public has to learn from the pandemic that upended so many scheduled proceedings and activities. “We have to remember what this crisis has taught us: The administration’s failure to plan, to prepare, to honestly assess and communicate the threat to the nation led to catastrophic results. We cannot repeat those mistakes,” wrote Biden.
Despite the pandemic putting campaign trails for the November elections in a standstill, Biden continues to gain more traction as the presumptive Democratic nominee. Over the weekend, the former vice president won the Alaska primary elections, reports NBC. His victory comes three days after his only other fellow Democrat rival, Senator Bernie Sanders announced the suspension of his campaign. Biden will then collect eight delegates from the state, and he needs 1,991 in order to secure his place as the Democratic nominee.