WASHINGTON — Never, in the country’s nearly 250-year history, has a president inherited a pandemic on the scale of Covid-19.
President-elect Joe Biden, who the Associated Press projected as the winner of the 2020 election on Saturday, will assume office on Jan. 20. He will likely do so amid surging coronavirus cases and increased deaths, and with no end in sight. Instantly, he will shoulder several herculean tasks, including a massive testing scale-up, restoring the credibility of government scientists, and overseeing the eventual distribution of hundreds of millions of vaccine doses. Perhaps most daunting, in a country plagued by apathy and misinformation: Biden will need to earn the buy-in of the American public.
Much of the work has already begun. In interviews with STAT, several Biden health advisers described a forthcoming effort to court skeptical mayors and governors, select and vet leaders for key public health agencies, and set a new tone for the nation’s pandemic response, even in the 10 weeks before he takes office. Many in the president-elect’s brain trust spoke on the condition that the conversations remain private until Biden was declared the winner.
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