The US campaign is focused on the coronavirus crisis. Joe Biden attacked head-on, Wednesday, September 16, his opponent Donald Trump on the theme of Covid-19, questioning his credibility, he who waves the promise of the imminent arrival of a vaccine as the country approaches the bar of 200,000 dead.
Management of the novel coronavirus pandemic since the start of 2020 “Totally disqualifies” the Republican billionaire for the second term he intends to run for on November 3, attacked the former vice-president of Barack Obama during a speech Wednesday afternoon in his stronghold of Wilmington, Delaware.
“The first responsibility of a president is to protect the American people and he does not do it”, he said, making the pandemic the most tragic symbol of what he considers to be the president’s inability to govern.
A lack of discernment blasted
Tuesday evening, Donald Trump again sought to reassure the population during a television program by affirming that the coronavirus would eventually disappear over time. “Everything is going to be fine, it’s disappearing. And that will disappear even faster with the vaccines ”, the former businessman said on ABC.
He then spoke of the construction of collective immunity, that is to say the natural contamination of a sufficiently high proportion of the population to stop the circulation of the virus, a level which is reached in return for a number of proportional death. But he apparently got the wrong word since he said “Group mentality” (“Herd mentality” instead of “Herd immunity”).
“Trump confirmed again this evening that after allowing the worst health crisis in 100 years to worsen for eight months, he not only has no plan, but he does not understand anything”Joe Biden spokesperson Kate Bedingfield said.
Return to normal life “not before the third quarter of 2021”
Still, the vaccine race is progressing quickly in the United States, with two candidates (Pfizer and Moderna) on the verge of having recruited 30,000 participants in their clinical trials against placebo. “We are a few weeks away from having one”, Donald Trump repeated Tuesday, without specifying whether he was talking about the availability of results or an official authorization. “It could be three, four weeks. “
“I trust vaccines, I trust scientists, but I don’t trust Donald Trump. And right now, Americans can’t trust either “Joe Biden replied Wednesday.
Even if clinical trials were conclusive before the November 3 election, which officials and experts deem unlikely, dose distribution will initially be “Very limited” and reserved for certain priority populations, possibly from November or December, Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) director Robert Redfield told Congress on Wednesday.
“If you ask me when the rest of Americans can benefit from the vaccine to return to normal life, I don’t think until the second or third quarter of 2021”, he predicted. Logistical preparations have already started. An official of Operation Warp Speed, which coordinates the government’s entire vaccine strategy, announced on Wednesday that the goal was to distribute the first doses of vaccine within 24 hours of a possible emergency authorization by the Medicines Agency (FDA ).
