Joe Biden Just Dropped His Very Own Coronavirus Plan

March 12, 2020 Topic: Politics Blog Brand: The Buzz Tags: Joe BidenCoronavirusDonald TrumpCOVID-192020 Election

Joe Biden Just Dropped His Very Own Coronavirus Plan

Joe Biden emphasized that everything he is proposing did not have to wait until after the November election. “President Trump is welcome to adopt all of it today,” he said.

This afternoon Joe Biden, the prohibitive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, addressed the media and explained his proposal to combat the coronavirus. The former vice president was critical on multiple points of how Donald Trump has overseen the effort the past month.

Biden explained the concern over the coronavirus was why his campaign had canceled multiple rallies in the past week and suspended several more. He claims that his campaign is reassessing the format in which he interacts with voters to ensure their safety (and, certainly, his own). Yesterday the Biden campaign created a public health advisory committee as an adjunct to their apparatus and to keep the candidate updated on the pandemic.

The candidate asked for everyone to lend a helping hand. “Whether or not you’re infected, or know someone who is infected, or have been in contact with an infected person, this is going to require a national response. Not just from our elected leaders, or our public health officials, but from all of us,” Biden said. “We will lead by science.”

Biden found that President Trump’s address last night was not the solution. “Banning all travel from Europe or any other part of the world may slow it [coronavirus], but as we have seen, will not stop it. And travel restrictions based on favoritism and politics rather than risk will be counterproductive,” he said. Some have insinuated that Trump excluded the United Kingdom and Ireland from the travel ban due to personal investments in those countries.

Furthermore, Biden rejected Trump’s language. “Labeling COVID-19 a ‘foreign virus’ does not displace accountability for the misjudgments that have been taken thus far by the Trump administration.” The coronavirus originated in the Wuhan province of China last fall.

First and foremost, as part of his plan, Biden endorsed the bill negotiated by Nancy Pelosi and that will be voted on today by the House of Representatives. The federal government “must spend whatever it takes, without delay, to meet public health needs and deal with the mounting economic consequences,” Biden advised, putting no cap on what he wouldn’t do.

Biden supports ensuring that testing for coronavirus be made available to Americans at no cost. That effort is already included in the Pelosi bill, but Biden goes one step further, arguing that illegal immigrants and non-U.S. residents have free testing as well. The former vice president’s plan includes an allocation for ten mobile or drive-thru testing sites per state. Drive-thru testing allows individuals to be tested and receive their results quickly without undue human interaction. It has been implemented successfully in other countries such as South Korea, but not yet in the United States.

Finally, Biden promised that as president he would restore the Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense to the National Security Council. The office was created by the Obama administration, but was eliminated under President Trump in 2018.

Joe Biden emphasized that everything he is proposing did not have to wait until after the November election. “President Trump is welcome to adopt all of it today,” he said.

Hunter DeRensis is the senior reporter for the National Interest. Follow him on Twitter @HunterDeRensis.