Washington, Nov. 17, (dpa/GNA) – US President-elect Joe Biden says that the refusal of the Trump administration to work on the transition to the next administration will hurt efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic and could lead to more deaths.
“More people may die if we don’t coordinate,” Biden said on Monday.
His remarks come as there is a growing sense that not only is Trump refusing to concede the election and work with Biden on moving ahead, but his administration is increasingly absent from efforts to slow the spread of the virus.
The United States has jumped from 10 million recorded cases to 11 million in just six days, and deaths are on the rise as well.
Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, warned that there is both a leadership crisis in the White House and an active effort from within the administration to urge people to revolt against restrictions being enforced to help curb the virus’ spread.
“We are in the midst of the worst weeks of this pandemic,” said Whitmer, a Democrat who has been frequently attacked by the Trump administration. “With the vacuum of leadership in Washington DC, it’s on the states’ governors to do what we can to save lives,” she said on cable news channel MSNBC.
Whitmer was the focus of a kidnapping plan that was foiled by local police and federal agents, with the alleged plotter apparently, at least in part, angered by orders she gave this year on restricting businesses and movement in order to contain the coronavirus spread.
Trump, a Republican, earlier this year urged people to “liberate” Michigan as Whitmer imposed restrictions.
Scott Atlas, a hand-picked adviser to Trump on the coronavirus, appeared to again call on citizens to revolt against governors like Whitmer, though he insisted he was not calling for violence.
“The only way this stops is if people rise up. You get what you accept,” he said on Twitter, pointing to new restrictions imposed by Whitmer, including stopping indoor dining at restaurants and pushing many schools to move entirely online.
Anthony Fauci, the long-serving top infectious diseases expert in the country, was critical of Atlas, saying bluntly on broadcaster NBC: “I totally disagree with the stand he takes. I just do, period.”
Fauci, who generally enjoys public respect, has also urged a smooth transition to the next administration. Biden has more wistfully said he hopes Trump “will be mildly more enlightened” soon enough.
There are signs of what is being dubbed “pandemic fatigue,” with people letting their guard down, such as by expanding their social circles, just as winter is setting in and caseloads are rising.
Thanksgiving, a major US holiday, comes next week and is normally a time for families to gather. Public officials are begging people to not mix outside their core households, but there are signs of resistance.
Some states and cities are rolling back reopenings as cases surge. California Governor Gavin Newsom announced he was “pulling an emergency brake,” shutting down indoor dining and some businesses again across most of the nation’s most populous state.
There has been no breakthrough in Washington, however, on a new stimulus bill, raising serious concerns about how business will survive and if people will face evictions from their homes.
Trump has hailed recent progress on vaccine developments, but otherwise stayed silent on the massive outbreaks across much of the US. He has, however, tweeted about the surge in Europe.
“European Countries are sadly getting clobbered by the China Virus. The Fake News does not like reporting this!” he tweeted.
More than 247,000 people in the US are reported to have died from Covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Vaccine doses will likely not be widely available until the second quarter of 2021, even as scientists are working at record-breaking speeds.
GNA