Preparations for a second wave of coronavirus should already be underway, with President Donald Trump empowering a supply officer to be sure that all materials and testing that will be needed are getting done, former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democrat nominee, said Friday, while outlining what he'd do if he was in office.
"Use the Defense Production Act to make sure that we also deal with the banking side of this to make sure all the things that, in fact, the Congress, the several trillion dollars they put out there to help small businesses stay alive actually get to small business," Biden said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "I'd also establish a pandemic testing board to finally solve the testing problem. I would open up a new enrollment period for healthcare."
Biden said he'd also push to examine why early data is showing that communities of color are dying at "alarming rates" from coronavirus and that he'd get economic relief as quickly as possible to the people most at need to diminish the impact of the disease.
He also said that he believes Trump should "take responsibility" on the issues that have happened with the fight against COVID-19, particularly when it comes to testing.
"He should be working to make sure we have a stockpile of all the protective gear that is needed in order to make sure that, God forbid if this does come back, which it probably will, that the hospitals are not left flat-footed like they were before."
Meanwhile, as the nation's businesses are reopening, Biden said that it's a "false choice" between getting coronavirus under control and working, as not much will happen if the number of new cases doesn't drop.
He pointed out that more than 60,000 people are dead, "and we talk about them like they are a number."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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