Biden coronavirus advisers nix national US lockdown

Washington, November 13

The head of Democratic US President-elect Joe Biden’s coronavirus advisory board mentioned on Friday there was no plan to close the nation down and that the brand new administration’s method shall be focused at particular areas.

Dr. Vivek Murthy, a former US surgeon common tapped to steer the board, mentioned docs have discovered so much about how the virus spreads and what steps to cut back danger are efficient.

“We’re not in a place where we’re saying shut the whole country down. We got to be more targeted,” Murthy mentioned in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Another member of Biden’s COVID workforce, Dr. Michael Osterholm, instructed in a Yahoo Finance interview on Wednesday that the nation might cowl particular person corporations’ and native governments’ losses for a four- to six-week lockdown to drive numbers down.

Osterholm clarified in an interview with ABC on Thursday that he didn’t talk about a lockdown with anybody on the advisory board and he didn’t assume there was a nationwide consensus for it. “Nobody’s going to support it,” he mentioned.

Neither Murthy nor Dr. Celine Gounder, one other Biden adviser, who appeared on CNN on Friday, embraced the thought of a nationwide lockdown.

“Right now the way we should be thinking about this is more like a series of restrictions that we dial up or down depending on how bad spread is taking place in a specific region,” Murthy mentioned.

Murthy cited New York City for example the place well being officers are concentrating on COVID interventions “down to the ZIP code.”

In his failed marketing campaign for re-election, Republican President Donald Trump warned with out proof that Biden would search to lock down the nation. The Trump administration pushed exhausting for the nation’s financial system to reopen. Coronavirus circumstances spiked over the summer season and are rising once more now across the nation.

The present rise has been accompanied by rising hospitalizations and surges within the charge of COVID-19 checks coming again positive. The onset of winter, with individuals extra more likely to congregate indoors, will solely worsen these developments, specialists say.

Chicago’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, on Thursday issued a monthlong stay-at-home advisory, and Detroit’s public colleges referred to as a halt to in-person instruction as greater than a dozen US states reported a doubling of recent COVID-19 circumstances within the final two weeks.

Murthy mentioned the Biden workforce’s precedence shall be to cease the unfold of the virus and deal with hard-hit populations like nursing properties and prisons. Increasing testing capability shall be key to these efforts.

“We still don’t have adequate testing so that anyone who wants a test can get one and get results quickly,” he mentioned.—  Reuters