Joe Biden declares ‘full-scale’ war on Covid-19

The US President warns Covid-19 will soon kill half a million Americans in a ‘dark winter’ of death, declaring the pandemic his top priority.

Joe Biden, flanked by Vice-President Kamala Harris, on Friday condemns Donald Trump for his lack of urgency in dealing with the pandemic. Picture: AFP

Joe Biden has declared a “full-scale wartime” assault on the coronavirus on his first full day as US President, warning it would soon have killed half a million Americans in a “dark winter” of death.

Fulfilling his promise to make the pandemic his No 1 priority, Mr Biden condemned former president Donald Trump for his lack of urgency in dealing with this ­“national emergency”.

“We’re in a dark winter of this pandemic,” the President said on Friday AEDT as he signed 10 executive orders to tackle the crisis by turbocharging the vaccine rollout, testing and treatment.

“For the past year we couldn’t rely on the federal government to act with the urgency and focus and co-ordination that we needed, and we have seen the tragic cost of that failure.

“To a nation waiting for action, let me be clear on this point: help is on the way.”

The US has been hit harder than any other country by the pandemic, with 25 million people infected and more than 405,000 dead, leaving the world’s largest economy crippled.

Mr Biden predicted that the death toll “will likely top 500,000 next month”.

The day after Mr Biden’s inauguration, uncertainty surrounded the timing of Mr Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate with Democrat House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying it would take place “soon” and ­Republicans calling for a delay.

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will ask Democrats to delay the trial until early next month to allow Mr Trump’s legal team to prepare a defence and for the former president to receive “a full and fair process.”

Ms Pelosi has not said when she plans to send the article of impeachment against the former president for inciting insurrection to the Senate, a move that would trigger the trial.

But she said a trial would definitely take place. “Just because he is now gone — thank god — you don’t say to a president, ‘Do whatever you want in the last months of your administration, you are going to get a get-out-of-jail-free card’ because people think we should make nice-nice, and forget that people died here on January 6,” Ms Pelosi said.

But both sides of politics agree that when a trial begins it should be a brief one with Democrats privately saying it could be as short as three days, far shorter than previous trials.

The impeachment trial threatens to divide the Senate once again, undermining Mr Biden’s call in his inaugural address for greater unity in the nation’s political discourse.

The 10 executive orders on the coronavirus signed by Mr Biden comes on top of 17 he signed on his first day as he seeks to fast-track efforts to unwind Mr Trump’s ­legacy.

But Senator McConnell criticised some of Mr Biden’s initial moves that included rejoining the Paris climate agreement, halting construction of the Mexico border wall and reversing pro-business cuts to regulations.

“On the Biden administration’s very first day, it took several big steps in the wrong direction,” Senator McConnell said, adding that the President should “remember that he does not owe his election to the far left”.

“The President can and should refocus his administration on creating good-paying American jobs, not sacrificing our people’s livelihoods to liberal symbolism.”.

Mr Biden released a 198-page National Strategy to combat the coronavirus, warning that the worst was yet to come and that it would take “many months to get where we need to be”.

More than 3000 people are dying each day from the pandemic with the vaccine still many months away for average Americans ­because of a botched and chaotic rollout.

Mr Biden extended his requirement to wear masks to make them mandatory on interstate planes, trains and buses and for international travellers to quarantine after arriving in the US.

The new strategy seeks to ramp up vaccinations across the country, as well as testing and treatments and invoking the Defence Procurement Act to meet a shortfall in supplies like masks and protective equipment.

Mr Biden is aiming for a target of 100 million vaccine injections in his first 100 days, but even then most Americans face long waits before getting it because demand far outstrips supply.

“The brutal truth is it’s going to take months before we can get the majority of Americans vaccinated,” he said.

“History is going to measure whether we are up to the task.”

He said the rollout of the vaccine had been ‘a dismal failure’ so far. “We are in a national emergency, it’s time we started treating it as one,’’ he said. “We are only 4 per cent of the world’s population, yet we have 25 per cent of the world’s cases and deaths.’’

Mr Trump’s poor management of the pandemic was seen as one of the main factors in his election loss on November 3.

The Wall Street Journal reported that FBI director Christopher Wray, appointed by Mr Trump in 2017, will be kept on by Mr Biden.

Mr Wray has six years remaining on his 10-year term but serves at the will of the president.

His predecessor James Comey, appointed by Barack Obama in 2103, was initially kept on by Mr Trump but was spectacularly sacked by him in May 2107 after he refused the president’s request to end the FBI’s investigation of former national security Michael Flynn over his links to Russia.