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Coronavirus pandemic
ChinaDiplomacy

Coronavirus: how Biden will use science to tackle the pandemic, the worst of Trump’s legacies

  • The 46th US president will be inaugurated amid the depths of a public health crisis during the heart of winter in a society with deep divisions
  • Among Biden’s measures to beat the Covid-19 crisis are mask rules, and promises of regular, reliable testing and equitable access to free vaccines

Reading Time:4 minutes
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Illustration: Brian Wang
Zhuang Pinghui
When Joe Biden is inaugurated as United States president on January 20 he will inherit the legacies of Donald Trump and one of the worst will be a coronavirus pandemic that is out of control during the depths of winter.
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Public health experts who had pinned their hopes on a Biden presidency could barely celebrate because the skyrocketing number of Covid-19 cases heralded daunting challenges ahead. The two-month wait before he takes power also means the country will not immediately get a long-overdue organised federal response to the pandemic.

Coronavirus infections are already surging at an unprecedented rate, passing the milestone of 10 million cases with the last million accumulating in just 10 days. An average of 130,000 cases per day were recorded in the past week and hospitals are being flooded with patients, including nearly 67,000 in hospital as of Thursday.

The imminent winter will drive people indoors where transmission is more likely and gatherings during America’s Thanksgiving holiday and Christmas could cause superspreading events. When these risk factors occur during flu season they present a formidable test for the health system.

“[The Covid-19 pandemic is] going to peak around the time he’s coming to the office and it could be much higher,” said Steve Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Centre at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

“It’s estimated that we could have 400,000 deaths by the time of inauguration. It’s going to be a very dark moment.”

Trump will also leave Biden with a divided society which sees the virus differently and has strong opinions on how to deal with it. Biden will have a huge task to get people focused on understanding the pandemic and its consequences, according to Morrison, with the country needing much greater mask use, better social distancing and less politicisation of the issues.

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