President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday delivered a searing message to Americans fighting fatigue from the COVID-19 pandemic, urging the U.S. to not give up the fight. Biden promised his administration will be unrelenting in its battle against a virus that has largely spun out of control as infection rates surge around the country and as his soon-to-be predecessor seems largely resigned to continue politicizing the virus.
“There is real hope, tangible hope. So hang on. Don’t let yourself surrender to the fatigue,” Biden said in an address from Wilmington, Delaware, lauding the emergence of promising COVID-19 vaccines poised for distribution. He urged Americans to be vigilant in observing guidance issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to combat the spread of the coronavirus over the Thanksgiving holiday.
"America is not going to lose this war," Biden said in a Thanksgiving address on Wednesday, urging Americans not to surrender to fatigue in combating the coronavirus pandemic. "Life is going to return to normal, I promise you," he said. pic.twitter.com/SyB66Og0mZ
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) November 25, 2020
The message — mask-wearing and social-distancing, were not new — and yet President Trump who has bunkered strongly since his electoral defeat has remained largely silent in his leadership on curbing the virus even as coronavirus deaths have topped more than a quarter-million in the U.S.
“America is not going to lose this war. You will get your lives back. Life is going to return to normal,” Biden said.
The incoming President offered a thinly-veiled criticism of President Trump’s pandemic response, suggesting that none of the science-driven guidance that would be put forward in the coming months as he takes his place in the White House would take sides in a partisan fight.
“None of these steps we’re asking people to take are political statements,” Biden said. “Every one of them is based in science.”
The comments which were consistent with remarks the President-elect made after he was declared the projected winner of the presidential election on Nov. 7, when he said that he would “marshal the forces of science” to battle the coronavirus pandemic. At that time he vowed to make a national pandemic response his top priority even before he is inaugurated as President.
The remarks on Wednesday were a sharp departure from President Donald Trump’s continuous efforts to undermine the wisdom of scientists and health experts within his own administration with regard to battling the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden’s words buffeted by a hopeful spirit about a future unhindered by coronavirus, also touched on the nation’s recent battle to uphold democracy amid President Trump’s ongoing efforts to overturn the will of the people by advancing baseless claims aimed at whittling away the integrity of the vote in a number of battleground states that he lost in his failed reelection bid.
“Our democracy was tested this year,” Biden said.
He appeared to indirectly address President Trump when he declared that American democracy would prevail and the voters’ vision would be observed.
“In America, we have full and fair and free elections, and then we honor the results. The people of this nation and the laws of the land won’t stand for anything else,” Biden said.
The President-elect who who will be tasked with serving as a unifying force in a fiercely divided country, called on Americans of all political persuasions to “come together and work together” and jointly “write a newer, bolder, more compassionate chapter in the life of our nation.”
“Through the vote — the noblest instrument of nonviolent protest ever conceived — we are reminded anew that progress is possible,” Biden said.
