Washington: The election rallies of Donald Trump are "super-spreader events", Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has alleged and questioned the US president's efforts in addressing the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The raging coronavirus outbreak has become a key issue in the November 3 presidential election between 74-year-old Trump, a Republican, and 77-year-old Biden, a former US vice president. The US has so far recorded 89,45,891 COVID-19 cases and 228,668 deaths -- both the numbers highest in the world.
Donald Trump just had a super-spreader event here again. They are spending more than just coronavirus; he is spreading division and discord, Biden, 77, said at a drive-in election rally in Tampa, hours after the president and First Lady Melania Trump addressed a huge crowd in the city in Florida, a battleground state.
Thousands of people, many of them without masks, crowded together at an outdoor event in Tampa on Thursday to hear Trump at the rally.
Donald Trump has given up (fight against coronavirus), Biden alleged. Over the weekend, the White House Chief of Staff said, and I am quoting, 'we are not going to control the pandemic'. It's obvious he's not, he said, referring to a recent interview of White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Meadows, in an interview to CNN's "State of the Union", on Sunday said, "We are not going to control the pandemic," arguing that "proper mitigation factors" like therapies and vaccines should be the priority.
Meadows said control of the virus was not a realistic goal because "it is a contagious virus just like the flu".
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Biden alleged that the Trump administration has waived the white flag of defeat against the deadly virus.
At the (presidential) debate last week with Trump, he said we are rounding the corner, it's going away, we are ready to live with it...He's asking us to learn to die with it; that's what is happening. Donald Trump has waved the white flag, abandoned our families and surrendered to this virus, Biden said.
However, Americans will never give in to the virus, he said, asserting that if voted to power, he will put in plan a place to deal with this pandemic responsibly, bringing the country together on testing, tracing, masking and meeting doctors.
Referring to Dr Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease specialist, Biden underlined that the health expert has said that "if we just wore a mask between now and the end of the year, we would save 100,000 lives". "But still, Donald Trump refuses to listen to science."
"We shouldn't be politicising the race for a vaccine; we should be planning for its safe use and free and equitable distribution, providing PPE for national standards for schools, businesses to open safely, Biden said.
The former US vice president alleged that President Trump has squandered the "strong economy" which he had inherited from the Obama-Biden administration.
Biden said if elected, he will build back the US better with an economy that rewards work and not wealth.
"We can do it without raising taxes by a single solitary penny on working-class or middle-class families, and I guarantee you...no one making less than USD 400,000 will pay a single penny more in taxes, not a penny, he said.
Biden said his administration will also strengthen Obamacare. We are going to protect social security and medicare, which they have been trying to cut for years," he said before wrapping up his speech at the Florida State Fairgrounds after a brief shower turned into a torrential downpour.
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(With inputs from PTI)
