Joe Biden Could Take Office During The Worst Of The Pandemic. What's His Plan?

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🗓️ 9 November 2020

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

In 2008, then President-elect Obama and President Bush set up a join task force to help the incoming administration deal with the financial crisis they were about to inherit. Brown University's Ashish Jha tells NPR a similar effort is needed now to deal with the coronavirus. But so far, there's no sign of any cooperation from the Trump administration.

President-elect Biden has established his own task force of scientists and physicians to work on his administration's response to the pandemic. Task force member Dr. Nicole Lurie tells NPR one goal of their effort will be to convince Americans the virus is the enemy — not each other.

The Biden administration will also inherit Operation Warp Speed, the government's vaccine development program. Gus Perna is the Army general in charge. He explains how vaccine distribution might work.

The pandemic won't be the only public health challenge facing the Biden administration if millions of people lose their health care coverage. That's what could happen if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, explains Erin Fuse Brown with Georgia State University's College of Law.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The President-elect of the United States of America, Joe Biden.
0:09.6	In just over two months, President-elect Joe Biden will take office with a huge list
0:14.8	of challenges.
0:16.2	On Saturday night, he told the country what's at the top of that list.
0:19.6	Our work begins with getting COVID under control.
0:23.3	We cannot repair the economy, restore our vitality, or relish life's most precious moments
0:29.6	hugging our grandchildren, our children, our birthdays, weddings, graduations, all the
0:34.0	moments that matter most to us until we get it under control.
0:38.3	On Monday, the Biden transition team named a Board of Scientific Advisors to help prepare
0:43.2	his administration to take action in January.
0:46.5	But so far, those advisers do not appear to be working with the current administration.
0:51.4	The model that we should be following is the 2008 financial crisis model when President
0:57.0	Bush and incoming President Obama set up a joint task force to work together during
1:02.3	the transition.
1:04.2	Brown University's Ashish Jaw told NPR, with the President refusing to concede the election,
1:10.0	there's no sign the Trump administration is helping to ease the transition.
1:14.0	But he says right now, with the country setting daily records for coronavirus cases and
1:18.6	hospitals filling up in many places, the U.S. needs more cooperation, not less.
1:24.4	I think it would save tens of thousands of lives, literally, because we could start
1:29.4	enacting policies that are going to eventually be enacted anyway, but a couple of months
1:33.6	earlier and really during the months when things are going to be so bad.
1:38.6	Consider this, Joe Biden is trying to show the U.S. will be in better hands with his coronavirus
	...

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