POLITICSCOVID-19: Biden unveils national pandemic response

United States President, Joe Biden, has launched a national strategy to curb the raging COVID-19 pandemic on his first full day in office.

Biden laid out a coordinated federal response long resisted by his predecessor Donald Trump.

His strategy aims to restore trust in the government, expand testing and mask-wearing, ramp up the vaccination programme, safely reopen businesses and schools and advance racial equity.

This was disclosed in a statement issued by the White House.

The statement read, “We can and will beat COVID-19. America deserves a response to the COVID-19 pandemic that is driven by science, data, and public health — not politics.

The National Strategy provides a roadmap to guide America out of the worst public health crisis in a century.”

The plan also lists a dozen executive actions to be issued by the new Democratic president during his first two days in office.

Biden also issued a raft of executive orders undoing some of Trump’s marquee policies, including mandating masks on federal property and stopping the United States exit from the World Health Organisation.

Trump had long downplayed and mismanaged the COVID-19 pandemic, avoided wearing masks in public and refused a federal response in favour of letting state governments take the lead.

The COVID-19 has infected 24.4 million people in the United States and killed more than 406,000, people far more than in any other country in the world.

• “Our nation continues to experience the darkest days of the pandemic, with record numbers of cases, hospitalisations and deaths,” the White House said.