{"id":105049,"date":"2021-01-23T04:47:16","date_gmt":"2021-01-23T04:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/?p=105049"},"modified":"2021-01-23T04:47:16","modified_gmt":"2021-01-23T04:47:16","slug":"biden-calls-for-wartime-virus-fight-as-gop-lawmakers-balk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/politics\/biden-calls-for-wartime-virus-fight-as-gop-lawmakers-balk\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Calls for \u2018Wartime\u2019 Virus Fight as GOP Lawmakers Balk"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Joe Biden warned the nation to prepare for its darkest days in the yearlong pandemic, predicting that as many as 100,000 more Americans will die over the next month as he overhauls the federal coronavirus response and presses Congress for more aid.<\/p>\n

But Biden\u2019s plea for the nation to assume a \u201cwartime\u201d footing did not immediately sway a recalcitrant Congress, where Republican opposition to his $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan only hardened. Even some liberal Democrats made clear they would not rubber-stamp the new president\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n

Highlighting the enormous stakes for his presidency, Biden unveiled the new administration\u2019s 200-page blueprint for battling the pandemic on Thursday, his first full day in office. He emphasized that scientists and doctors would lead the effort — a rebuke of his predecessor, Donald Trump, who sidelined many of the government\u2019s medical experts and instead surrounded himself with advisers who encouraged his disregard for public health precautions.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me be very clear — things are going to continue to get worse before they get better,\u201d Biden said. \u201cThe brutal truth is it\u2019s going to take months before we can get the majority of Americans vaccinated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sharp Reversal<\/h3>\n

In a sign of the sharp reversal of course in handling an outbreak that has now killed more than 400,000 Americans, the Biden team returned to center stage Anthony Fauci, one of the world\u2019s best-known infectious disease experts. Fauci spent a whirlwind Thursday appearing first via video conference for a World Health Organization meeting in the pre-dawn U.S. hours and then delivering remarks at a nationally televised White House briefing in the afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that you can get up here and talk about what you know, what the evidence, what the science is and know that it\u2019s, let the science speak, is somewhat of a liberating feeling,\u201d he said at the briefing. He was referring to the shift in working for Biden instead of Trump, whom he had occasionally contradicted before the former president shunted him aside for more agreeable advisers.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n
More Coverage<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
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