Biden Set To Name Next Coronavirus Task Force

ACROSS AMERICA — The United States' approach to battling the virus will undergo a steep change come Jan. 20, 2021 when President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris take hold of the White House.

Biden, in a victory speech made from Wilmington, Delaware Saturday night, said he will announce a COVID-19 task force on Monday. The 12-member panel is expected to include Vivek Murthy, a former surgeon general, who has been a key Biden adviser for months and is expected to take a major public role; David Kessler, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, a Yale University professor, according to the New York Times and others.

The former Vice President said he will confront the pandemic on the first day of taking office by appointing a "national supply chain commander" and creating a "pandemic testing board."

He is two months away from taking the reins from President Donald Trump.

New daily coronavirus cases have set new rec after the United States confirmed a record number of coronavirus cases over a 24-hour period for three days in a row. Data from the New York Times shows 126,156 new cases reported nationwide on Saturday, a day after the country added another 132,700 cases to its total.

In at least 24 states, more cases have been announced in the past week than in any other seven-day stretch since the pandemic began.

The United States' struggles with the virus come as more than 50 million cases have been reported across the globe, data from Johns Hopkins University shows.

Surges in the U.S. are particularly high at nursing homes.

An analysis of federal data from 20 states for The Associated Press finds that new weekly cases among residents rose nearly four-fold from the end of May to late October, from 1,083 to 4,274. Resident deaths more than doubled, from 318 a week to 699, according to the study by University of Chicago health researchers Rebecca Gorges and Tamara Konetzka.

Across the country, the virus is leaving its mark, and governors spent much of this week pleading with residents to do what they can to stop the spread of the virus.

Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio issued his own plea after announcing record cases.

"This virus doesn’t care if we voted for Donald Trump, doesn’t care if we voted for Joe Biden,” said Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio. “It’s coming after all of us.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced this week that students at State University of New York colleges and universities will not return to campus after Thanksgiving break.

“To send children home for Thanksgiving to then bring them back basically for a couple of weeks from across the country and then end the semester — literally two, three weeks later — doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Cuomo said.

Since cases once again started to climb in September, U.S. states have reintroduced some restrictions but have steered clear of any widespread, sweeping mandates. Some health officials hope that will change in a post-election landscape, The Washington Post reported.

“There’s been this sense of people giving up,” Michael Fraser, chief executive of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told The Post. “You had state leaders looking at the election and deciding it was not worth taking bold, unpopular moves against the virus that might save lives but hurt your side politically. There’s been state health officials debating whether to continue telling people to do things, because they know many are not going to listen.”

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The Latest Numbers

At least 1,013 new coronavirus deaths and 126,156 new cases were reported in the United States on Friday, according to a New York Times database. Over the past week, there has been an average of 106,972 cases per day, an increase of 57 percent from the average two weeks earlier.

As of Sunday, 37 states and Puerto Rico remained above the positive testing rate recommended by the World Health Organization to safely reopen. To safely reopen, the WHO recommends states remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days.

More than 9.9 million people in the United States had tested positive for the coronavirus as of Sunday evening, and more than 237,500 have died, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Stay up to date on the latest coronavirus news via The New York Times or Washington Post.

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