President-Elect Joe Biden will urge Americans to wear personal protective masks for the first 100 days of his administration.
While the former vice president said the request would not be a formal mandate, he did say having people wear the masks for 100 days would result in a “significant reduction” in the spread of the coronavirus.
“Just 100 days to mask, not forever. 100 days. And I think we’ll see a significant reduction,” Biden said.
As Axios reports, the comments came during Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ interview with CNN on Thursday, the first joint interview since being declared the winners of the 2020 presidential election.
“In the hour-long segment, the twosome laid out plans for responding to the pandemic, jump-starting the economy and managing the transition of power, among other priorities,” Axios reports, noting the duo would take an approach to tackling the coronavirus pandemic and its economic impact much differently than the current administration.
The report adds:
- He also said he has asked NIAID director Anthony Fauci to stay on in his current role, serve as a chief medical adviser and be part of his COVID-19 response team when Biden takes office early next year.
- The president-elect will be “happy to” publicly get a coronavirus vaccine once Fauci says it’s safe.
- Biden and Harris’ COVID relief proposal will depend on Congress, and Biden called Democrats’ $900 billion bill a start, but “not enough.”
- He has appointed a person in the White House to oversee inequities in the health care system and emphasized the need to make vaccines accessible to communities of color.
The duo also spoke on incorporating more diversity into their administration, intending to create a White House more “representative of Asian Americans, African Americans, Latinos, [and] LGBTQ.”
Biden said the currently announced positions are not enough to satisfy his own ambitions.
“The first eight Cabinet members Biden’s team has announced are three men and five women; five people of color and three white people,” Axios reports.
Biden and Harris promoted their effort to combat humanity’s impact on the climate, which they claim will create 18.6 million jobs and will add $1 trillion in revenue.
“The clock is ticking rapidly on this issue, and the president-elect has made it very clear that we are going to approach this in a way that we know the vast majority have so much more in common than what separates us,” Harris said.
Host Jake Tapper closed the interview asking the duo about the eventual transition of power.
Biden assured he won the election and said it was up to Trump to maintain the integrity and “protocol of the transfer of power.”
“And look where we are now in the world. Look how we’re viewed … In that sense the protocol of the transfer of power I think is important but it is totally his decision and it’s of no personal consequence to me but I do think it is for the country,” he said.