Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said he would close the United States down over the spread of the new virus from China if health experts recommended to do so.
“I will be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives because we cannot get the country moving, until we control the virus,” Biden added. “That is the fundamental flaw of this administration’s thinking to begin with. In order to keep the country running and moving and the economy growing, and people employed, you have to fix the virus, you have to deal with the virus.”
Tim Murtaugh, the director of communications for President Donald Trump’s campaign, knocked Biden for his promise.
“The economy has taken off like a rocket ship, yet Biden is critical of job losses inflicted by the Covid lockdown. But now he says he’d shut the country down again for the virus,” he said in a statement.
“Under Biden, the economy would collapse and cause its own health problems,” he added.
Trump in early August suggested he wouldn’t issue similar recommendations again.
“It’s important for all Americans to recognize that a permanent lockdown is not a viable path forward producing the result that you want or certainly not a viable path forward and would ultimately inflict more harm than it would prevent,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
“As we’re seeing in foreign countries around the world where cases are once again surging—you have many places where we thought they were under control and doing a great job, and they are doing a great job, but this is a very tough, invisible enemy—lockdowns do not prevent infection in the future. They just don’t. It comes back. Many times, it comes back. The purpose of a lockdown is to buy time to build capacity, especially as it respects to—with respect to hospitals; learn more about the disease; and develop effective treatments, as we did in the United States. We’re doing very well with the vaccines and the therapeutics.”
The focus in the current phase of the pandemic response is protecting people at highest risk from the new illness while letting younger and healthier Americans resume work and school, with precautions, the president said.
“You don’t have to lock down again, but everybody has got to be on board for doing these five or six fundamental public health measures,” including wearing masks, maintaining social distance, and avoiding crowds, he added.
