Biden plans to urge all Americans to wear masks
for 100 days after inauguration
President-elect and Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris
pledge to receive Covid vaccines as soon as possible
Joanna
Walters in New York and Kari Paul in San Francisco
Fri 4 Dec
2020 00.37 GMTLast modified on Fri 4 Dec 2020 04.22 GMT
Joe Biden
intends to call for all Americans to wear masks for 100 days after he becomes
president in an attempt to bring down infection rates, as the coronavirus
crisis continues to rage out of control in the US.
The
president-elect and vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris, have also committed to
receiving coronavirus vaccinations as soon as possible when, as expected, the
first vaccines are approved by US regulators.
Sitting for
their first joint interview since the November election, with CNN’s Jake
Tapper, Biden said he would be willing to join with the three previous US
presidents who pledged on Thursday that they would be injected with the
Covid-19 vaccine in public in order to boost faith in the inoculations among
the American public.
Bill
Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama all said they would be willing to be
vaccinated on television, once a vaccine is approved in the US.
“I would be
happy to do that one,” Biden said when asked if he would be prepared to have
the coronavirus vaccine before he is inaugurated as the 46th president in
January.
He added:
“I think that my three predecessors have set the model as to what should be
done.”
Biden said
he would adhere to what Obama said on Thursday: that the former president,
would be vaccinated if Anthony Fauci, the top public health official on the
White House coronavirus taskforce, affirmed that the vaccines awaiting US
regulatory approval for emergency use are safe.
“When Dr
Fauci says we have a vaccine and it’s safe, that’s the moment at which I will
stand before the public … Part of what’s happened is that people have lost
faith in the ability of the vaccine to work … It matters what a president and a
vice-president do.
“That’s my
measure,” Biden said.
Harris has
previously said in an interview that she’s be eager to line up for a shot when
Fauci says it’s safe to do so.
Earlier on
Thursday, the former president Jimmy Carter, who is 96, put out a statement via
his charitable foundation the Carter Center, saying that he and his wife
Rosalynn “are in full support of Covid-19 vaccine efforts and encourage
everyone who is eligible to get immunized as soon as it becomes available in
their communities.”
Donald
Trump has not spoken publicly about whether he will get the vaccine. On
Thursday he remained silent about the record deaths and hospitalizations
recorded in the US in the previous 24 hours, as the American death toll
exceeded 275,000 and recorded cases crossed the 14m threshold, according to
Johns Hopkins University data.
Biden also
answered “yes and yes” when asked if he had spoken to Fauci since beating Trump
in the November presidential election and whether he would keep Fauci on as director
of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a role he has
held since 1984, when Ronald Reagan was president.
Biden said
he spoke to Fauci on Thursday afternoon and his “Covid team” of health advisers
had also spoken with him.
He said he
also asked Fauci to be his chief medical adviser and be part of the Covid team
advising him on the pandemic.
Trump has
in recent months tried to sideline Fauci while taking advice from less
qualified figures such as Scott Atlas, who resigned from his position as a
White House adviser on the pandemic earlier this week. He boosted the
president’s public ambivalence on protections such as mask-wearing and rules on
social distancing.
In
contrast, Biden said he had talked to Fauci on Thursday about face masks. “It’s
important that the president and the vice-president, we set the pattern by
wearing masks, but beyond that, where the federal government has authority I’m
going to issue a standing order that in federal buildings you have to be
masked, and on interstate transportation you must be masked, on airplanes and
buses, etc,” he said.
Both Harris
and Biden have committed to taking a Covid vaccine as soon as possible.
The
president-elect then added that it was his “inclination” that on the first day
of his presidency “I’m going to ask the public for 100 days to mask, just 100
days, not for ever … and I think we’ll see a significant reduction that occurs,
with vaccinations and masking, to drive down the numbers considerably.”
Biden said
he had spoken with teachers’ unions in addition to public health experts about
the best practices to keep schools open. This includes vaccines, frequent
testing, and sanitizing at schools. He added that there is a clear path to
keeping kids in school, but it won’t be cheap.
“It’s going
to cost literally billions of dollars to get this done,” Biden said.
The pair
also addressed other aspects of their agenda, including tackling the climate
crisis. Answering a question on whether their ambitious goals will be
achievable, given obstructions by Congress, Harris said: “Our agenda is pretty
progressive. And some might call it ambitious. But we, the American people, and
frankly the world, can’t afford anything less. The clock is ticking rapidly on
this issue.”
CNN’s
Tapper also asked Biden if he thought it would be important for the nation for
Trump as the outgoing president to attend the inauguration ceremony of his
successor, as presidents always do but as many predict Trump will not.
Biden said
it had little to do with his own feelings but that he thought it was important
in relation to the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the
next and also for how the US is perceived around the world.
“It is
totally his decision,” Biden said. “It is of no personal consequence to me, but
I think it is to the country.” He further lamented Trump’s refusal to concede,
saying, “These kinds of things happen in tin-horn dictatorships.”
The
president-elect remained mostly civil when discussing the “chaos” of his
predecessor Trump, with the exception of several pointed comments. He said the
Biden-Harris administration will not be using its power to pardon family
members and other associates, as Trump is reportedly exploring.
“You are
not going to see in our administration that kind of approach to pardons, nor
are you going to see in our administration an approach to making policy by
tweets,” he said.
Biden said
he does not personally have any plans to prosecute Trump for crimes committed
in office and that the justice department officials he appoints will work
independently. He added that while Trump and his allies seem to be publicly
downplaying or outright denying Biden’s win, some senators have privately
called the president-elect to congratulate him.
Harris said
the US will be lucky to have Biden take over as president, especially after
four years of Trump, saying “there could not be a more extreme exercise in
stark contrast between the current occupant of the White House and the next
occupant of the White House”.
“The
American people deserve in their president to be have someone who is truly
patriotic who loves our country,” Harris said. “Who puts the people of the
country first, not themselves.”
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