Pandemic Reaches Grim Milestone as Biden Moves to Take Charge - The New York Times - 0 views
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As the number of infected Americans passed 10 million and governors struggled to manage the pandemic, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. tried on Monday to use his bully pulpit — the only tool at his disposal until he replaces President Trump in 72 days — to plead for Americans to set aside the bitterness of the 2020 election and wear a mask.
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“It doesn’t matter your party, your point of view. We can save tens of thousands of lives if everyone would just wear a mask for the next few months. Not Democratic or Republican lives — American lives.”
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Hours before Mr. Biden’s remarks, the drug maker Pfizer announced that an early analysis of its coronavirus vaccine trial suggested the vaccine was robustly effective in preventing Covid-19,
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The average daily death toll in the United States is inching back toward 1,000, and hospitals nationwide are strained with patients. The president-elect said that Americans would need to rely on basic precautions, like wearing masks, to “get back to normal as fast as possibl
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The country now averages 900 deaths each day, and 28 states added more cases in the seven-day period ending Sunday than in any other weeklong stretch of the pandemic. No states are reporting sustained reductions in cases.
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Coronavirus hospitalizations, perhaps the clearest measure of how many people are severely ill, are approaching record levels set during earlier surges of the pandemic, according to data collected by the Covid Tracking Project
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At the White House, which has been the site of several high-profile outbreaks in recent months, Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development, tested positive for the coronavirus on Monday, according to a spokesman for the agency. He became the latest in a long list of administration officials, including Mr. Trump himself, to contract the virus.
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At least three people who attended an election party at the White House last week, including Mr. Carson, have tested positive for the virus. At the event, several hundred people gathered in the East Room for several hours, many of them not wearing masks as they mingled while watching the election returns.
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Beyond the impact of the virus itself, when Mr. Biden takes office, he will face a sobering economic reality.
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There were 10 million fewer Americans working in October than in February, according to the Labor Department, and the pace of job growth has slowed every month since June.
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Mr. Biden, moving to signal to Americans that he is prepared to take charge after a chaotic year, named a new coronavirus task force headed by a former commissioner of food and drugs, Dr. David Kessler; a former surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy; and a Yale public health expert, Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith.
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The president-elect vowed to “spare no effort” in fighting the virus, with the goal of getting the economy “running at full speed again.”
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His comments contrasted Mr. Trump’s. The president has spent the past eight months dismissing or playing down the need for Americans to wear masks, saying frequently — and falsely — that public health experts disagree about masks’ effectiveness.
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Vice President Mike Pence, who serves as the chairman of Mr. Trump’s coronavirus task force, convened the group on Monday after meeting about once a week over the past several months. But Mr. Trump, who remains in office until January, is openly at odds with his own virus advisers, including about mask wearing.
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More than half of the states issued mask mandates at some point this year, and some officials have tried targeted shutdowns on bars and indoor dining. But public health officials acknowledge that there is little public appetite for a return to full lockdowns.
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“The virus is winning the war by now,” Mr. Pritzker said, urging the public to wear masks. “The situation has worsened considerably in certain areas of the state.”
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In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio warned on Monday that the city was “getting dangerously close” to a second wave and said that further lockdowns were possible if New Yorkers did not regain control of the virus. “Unfortunately, it could mean even having to shut down parts of our economy again,” he said.At Mr. Biden’s closed-door briefing with his Covid advisory board, which took place remotely over a video conference call on Monday, three leaders of the panel provided updates on the pandemic while others members of the group introduced themselves, according to a person familiar with the discussion.
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He told lawmakers that officials in the government had failed to heed his warnings about acquiring masks and other supplies