Elected president Joe Biden
Joe BidenCongress Passes .3T Coronavirus Aid, Government Funding Deal House Conservatives Crawl Into White House To Schedule Challenging Election Results House Passes Massive Spending Deal, Making Senate More Vote said Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic is likely to get worse despite the advent of vaccines, and urged Americans to be vigilant in the coming months.
“Experts say it will get worse despite the vaccine,” Biden told reporters in Wilmington, Del. “We have an average death rate of nearly 3,000 a day. That means we will lose tens of thousands more lives in the coming months, and the vaccine will not be able to stop that.”
“So we still need to stay vigilant,” he continued, calling on Americans to wear masks, distance themselves socially, and avoid large gatherings.
In addition, Biden called on Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill to operate in a two-pronged way. The president-elect praised lawmakers for approving the latest coronavirus aid package this week.
“Like all compromises, it’s far from perfect. But it does provide essential relief at a critical time,” said Biden. “But, as I’ve been saying all along, this bill is just the first step – a down payment – to deal with the crisis we’re in. We still have a lot of work to do.”
Biden said he will present a plan that will map the country’s path to fighting the virus, saying help will be needed with the distribution of vaccines, reopening schools, helping frontline workers and stopping more economic consequences of the virus.
Earlier this month, Biden outlined a three-pronged approach he will take to combat the pandemic once he takes office in January. The plan included 100 million vaccine doses in the first 100 days of his presidency, safely reopening as many schools as possible and asking Americans to wear a mask for 100 days.
Biden received the coronavirus vaccine on television on Monday.
His comments on Tuesday come days before the Christmas holidays, which will look drastically different for many Americans this year amid the pandemic.
Biden acknowledged the adjustments he made for his holiday celebrations and noted that he will observe the holiday on a smaller scale.
“For the Bidens, we usually have 20 to 25 family members for Christmas dinner, and then the immediate family, 14 of our children and grandchildren and their husbands who came down the stairs on Christmas morning, but not this year,” he said. “As we did over Thanksgiving, we all have to take care of each other enough that we have to stay apart for a while. I know it’s hard, but we still have a long way to go.”