Joe Biden plans to name his own task force to deal with the coronavirus pandemic before he takes office as he tries to get a grip on spiralling case numbers that are numbering more than 100,000 a day in the US.

The president-elect will on Monday announce a 12-member team to tackle the virus even before announcing any of his cabinet, Mr Biden said in his victory speech on Saturday night.

The move underlines Mr Biden’s pledge to make dealing with coronavirus his top priority, and stands in contrast with outgoing President Donald Trump, who has stopped meeting his own coronavirus task force, according to senior officials.

Mr Biden will name three co-chairs of the panel, according to Axios: Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general; David Kessler, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; and Marcella Nunez-Smith, associate professor of medicine at Yale University.

During the campaign, Mr Biden accused Mr Trump of being responsible for the deaths of many of the Americans who have succumbed to Covid-19, a toll that stands at 225,000, saying he had failed to follow advice from his own administration’s scientists on how to deal with the virus.

Public health authorities have issued warnings that mass gatherings to celebrate the presidential election being called in favor of Democrat Joe Biden could be 'high risk' events for the spread of coronavirus.

On Saturday afternoon, thousands crushed together in the streets of New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles and elsewhere, celebrating Biden's projected win of the presidency.

U.S. coronavirus infections surged by at least 129,606 on Friday, the third consecutive daily rise of more than 100,000 cases as a third wave of COVID-19 sweeps the United States.

The spike marks the FOURTH time that more than 100,000 cases of the new coronavirus have been reported in the world's worst-hit country, which is reporting about 95,000 daily cases on a seven-day average.

U.S. hospitalizations for COVID-19 rose for a 12th consecutive day, exceeding 54,500.

Governor Greg Abbott said the U.S policy. Department of Defense has deployed three U.S. Air Force Medical Specialty Teams to El Paso.

COVID-19 deaths are trending higher but more slowly than infections. The United States is averaging 880 deaths a day, up about 10% in a week.

The president-elect is vowing a major shift in the way the White House approaches coronavirus after Mr Trump repeatedly downplayed its gravity and resisted public health measures including wearing masks and social distancing.

The Biden team said it would ensure all Americans had access to regular and free testing and provide "clear, consistent, evidence-based guidance" to communities.

Mr Biden also wants rules mandating the wearing of masks across the country, which he says would save thousands of lives. He plans to call on every American to wear a mask when they are around people outside their own household and wants state governors and local authorities to make this obligatory.

The president-elect has regularly appeared in public wearing a mask while Mr Trump has largely avoided doing so.

US cases rose by more than 125,000 on Saturday for the third day in a row and deaths exceeded 1,000 for the fifth day in a row. More than 237,000 people have died. Earlier this month top US virus expert Dr Anthony Fauci said the US "could not possibly be positioned more poorly" as the country approached winter and people spent more time congregating indoors.

Mr Biden also announced plans to reboot the virus-hit US economy, which has seen millions more people become unemployed, by boosting manufacturing, investing in infrastructure, making childcare more affordable and reducing the wealth gap between different ethnic groups.

What's Biden's pandemic plan?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-54866037



Good for Joe .....

Biden will face a strong backlash from the public if he enforces mandatory face mask wearing.

Only from rednecks .....

Better to be a redneck than a shirtlifter

Expressing a message of unity, the president-elect said: "I implore you, wear a mask. Do it for yourself. Do it for your neighbour. A mask is not a political statement. But it is a good way to start pulling the country together."

He has welcomed the announcement from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in the race for an effective jab.

But he cautioned that Americans still need to take mask wearing and social distancing seriously.

And he said any vaccine would not be widely available for many months to come.

Just two days after being declared victors in the US election, future president Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris announced a COVID-19 advisory board stacked with infectious-disease researchers and former public-health advisers who will help them to craft a pandemic plan as they transition into office.

The speed of the announcement, alongside an updated COVID-19 plan, has scientists and doctors hopeful that the United States can correct its course in its handling of the outbreak: so far, 10 million Americans have been infected and more than 240,000 have died. And the numbers continue to rise.

Eric Goosby, an infectious-diseases researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, who led past White House AIDS responses, and Vivek Murthy, a doctor who served as US surgeon general between 2014 and 2017, are among the 13 advisory board members who will brief the future leaders. Observers say the board members are an experienced and impressive team.

The immediate naming of the board is a stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s efforts to contain the pandemic. He has been criticized for ignoring the advice of public-health specialists and downplaying the dangers of the coronavirus, worsening the pandemic’s toll on the country.