Biden set to address plans for economy as pandemic rages

President-elect Joe Biden is set to outline his plans to revive the nation’s economy in the midst of a global health crisis

Biden (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

President-elect Joe Biden is set to outline his plans to revive the nation's economy in the midst of a global health crisis on Monday as he pushes forward with his transition to the White House despite President Donald Trump s refusal to accept the election results.

Biden, who will take office on Jan. 20, is scheduled to speak alongside Vice President-elect Kamala Harris from his makeshift headquarters in Delaware. Before the speech, they will meet virtually with a collection of labor and business leaders.

“As you know, our work is far from over," Biden's transition team said in a statement ahead of the afternoon address. “It will mostly be work of a different kind — of governing, of building and working to lift our nation, our economy our communities, and each other back to where we were before this pandemic, and beyond.”

Biden, a Democrat, has vowed to spend trillions of dollars to reinvigorate U.S. manufacturing, expand health care coverage and combat climate change, among other priorities. But his chief priority remains controlling the coronavirus pandemic, which is surging to record levels and forcing state and local leaders to implement new rounds of restrictions on local businesses.

The president-elect has so far tried to sidestep difficult questions about whether he might support a short-term national lockdown to arrest the surge of coronavirus cases. Since defeating Trump, Biden has devoted most of his public remarks to encouraging Americans to wear masks and embrace social distancing measures.

But members of his coronavirus advisory board have been more specific. One member, Dr. Michael Osterholm, recently suggested a four- to six-week national lockdown with financial aid for Americans whose livelihoods would be affected. He later walked back the remarks and was rebutted by two other members of the panel who said a widespread lockdown shouldn’t be under consideration.

Speaking Monday on “CBS This Morning,” Osterholm was not asked about a potential lockdown, but he said the nation needs “a standard set of principles.”

“Right now, we don’t have a standardized set so you’re hearing all these governors and mayors are scrambling to try to find what is the right answer for us, and it would surely help all of them, and that’s what I’m hearing from them, that we have a standardized set of recommendations and protocols,” he said.

Recent reports suggest that at least two vaccines are close to winning approval, though mass distribution is likely several months away.

Trump seemed to acknowledge Biden's victory for the first time on Sunday before walking back the remark and repeating false claims of widespread voter fraud. Despite mounting public pressure, the Trump administration has refused to initiate the traditional transition briefings for the incoming president's team on national security and policy issues.

Trump is also blocking Biden's team from being briefed on efforts to control the pandemic and distribute prospective vaccines.

“We now have the possibility ... of a vaccine starting perhaps in December or January,” Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, said Sunday. “There are people at HHS making plans to implement that vaccine. Our experts need to talk to those people as soon as possible so nothing drops in this change of power we’re going to have on Jan. 20.”

Before his Monday remarks, Biden and Harris were holding virtual meetings with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, General Motors CEO Mary Barra and Microsoft President and CEO Satya Nadella, among others.