It’s time for former Vice-President Joe Biden to go public with his plan for managing COVID-19 now and in the future. The Biden plan presents comprehensive strategies to manage the medical, financial, psychological, and legislative issues resulting from the coronavirus. Some specifics of the program are;
- A public health response that ensures full availability of free testing, no-cost preventative gear and treatment for COVID-19 patients, the development of a vaccine, and full deployment of personnel, facilities, and supplies to deal with the crisis.
- An economic response that starts with emergency paid leave for all affected by the outbreak, along with families, workers, and small businesses.
- Organizing an effective national emergency response process to save lives, limit the spread of COVID-19, protect front-line workers.
- Rallying the world to confront the pandemic crisis while laying the foundation for the future
- Remove politics and misinformation from all approaches to dealing with the crisis. Biden would ensure that all public health decisions be made by public health professionals, not politicians.
- Restore the White House National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, which was established by the Obama-Biden Administration and eliminated by the Trump Administration in 2018.
These are just several of the many components of Biden’s plans to deal with COVID-19. In contrast to Biden’s evident expertise and leadership, Trump continues to sound like an incompetent, self-interested, re-election-hungry politician. In yet another speech at the White House this week, he announced the worst of the virus is over, that it might not come back at all in the Fall, and a lot of people “got it wrong” in assessing the threat. When asked by reporter Bob Acosta if “he” got it wrong, he blamed everyone but himself. No president in history has ever sounded so defensive, avoidant, insecure, and dishonest as when Trump talks about the pandemic.Biden must get out in front of the American people and demonstrate the kind of competent, compassionate leadership that Trump does not have.Yesterday was the kind of damaging day for Trump’s image that should make Joe Biden launch out of his basement into the public arena to highlight the contrast between him and the President. Trump stood before the country yesterday and bragged, “no one has ever done a job as great as we (referring to himself, of course) have done in fighting this epidemic.” Biden should point out with 60,000 people dead and a million people infected from this disease, no president should think he has anything to brag about unless he is a malignant narcissist. Additionally, bragging about the imaginary leadership that Jared Kushner has demonstrated in the COVID-19 effort is appalling. No one believes that false claim and saying it makes him sound completely crazy.Dr. Anthony Fauci’s excellence has become so threatening to Trump’ s weak ego, he is replacing him with Jared as the person deserving of credit for managing the crisis. The absurdity is disturbing. Another bad-day piece of news for Trump was the Washington Post story about how back in January the President’s daily briefings from the Intelligence community included warnings about what was happening in China with the coronavirus. The briefings suggested the United States needed to have a plan to deal with the potential threat to our country. Trump, who famously does not read his daily briefings and therefore was derelict in his duty to be informed about pandemic activity outside the United States. So he spent January, February, and part of March lying about the virus threat to the American people.Today’s reporting was another reminder of how the lives of people are directly being harmed and lost during COVID-19 because Trump doesn’t like to read, won’t listen to advisors, and makes decisions that favor himself over the country.Joe Biden’s plan shows his extensive knowledge of government, policymaking, economic issues, foreign policy, public health, and environmental realities. Unqualified people should not be elected President. Morality, honesty, and transparency are qualities that ensure governing will be fair, legal, and moral. Trump possesses none of these qualities. Biden possesses all of them.Biden must talk about Trump’s failure at 1) providing pervasive free virus testing, 2) supplying adequate PPE for all Americans, and 3) supporting the medical experts messaging about the continued threat the coronavirus poses. He must also call Trump out on every lie he proceeds to tell, such as, “we are leading the world in testing and are beating this thing.”A President who hides his taxes, uses a private cell phone to speak to adversaries, has been accused of sexual misconduct, spends more time golfing than reading intelligence briefings, is involved in countless lawsuits, and was impeached for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress SHOULD NOT REMAIN PRESIDENT. Biden, and whoever he chooses as his running mate, will repair the damage America has suffered under Trumpism and will restore morality and competency to the presidency.
