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President Joe Biden's United States of America

Biden names coronavirus advisory board, including whistleblower fired by Trump
‘I will be informed by science and by experts,’ president-elect says; advisers include scientist ousted by White House following his warnings about COVID-19, hydroxychloroquine

From link.

As he begins his transition to the presidency, Joe Biden is pivoting from a bitter campaign battle to another, more pressing fight: reining in the pandemic that has hit the world’s most powerful nation harder than any other.

The US is now averaging more than 100,000 new coronavirus infections a day, frequently breaking records for daily cases. Hospitals in several states are running out of space and staff, and the death toll is soaring.

Public health officials warn that the nation is entering the worst stretch yet for COVID-19 as winter sets in and the holiday season approaches, increasing the risk of rapid transmission as Americans travel, shop and celebrate with loved ones.
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“The next two months are going to be rough, difficult ones,” said Dr. Albert Ko, an infectious disease specialist and department chairman at the Yale School of Public Health. “We could see another 100,000 deaths by January.”
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So far, the US has recorded more than 9.8 million infections and more than 237,000 deaths from COVID-19.

Biden announced Monday that former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. David Kessler and Yale University associate professor and associate dean Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith will serve as co-chairs of a coronavirus advisory board.
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The board also includes Rick Bright, CNN reported.

Bright is the former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, who said in a whistleblower complaint that he was ousted after the Trump administration ignored his dire warnings about COVID-19 and the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine that US President Donald Trump was pushing for the coronavirus despite scant evidence it helped.

The board, including doctors and scientists who’ve served in previous administrations, will be tasked with taking the virus proposals that Biden released during the campaign and turning them into a blueprint the new president can enact after he is inaugurated in January.

“Dealing with the coronavirus pandemic is one of the most important battles our administration will face, and I will be informed by science and by experts,” Biden said in a statement Monday.

Biden pledged during the campaign to make testing free and widely available; to hire thousands of health workers to help implement contact-tracing programs; and to instruct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to provide clear, expert-informed guidelines, among other proposals.
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As the Democratic nominee, Biden made Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic a central focus of his campaign. But much of what Biden has proposed will take congressional action, and he’s certain to face challenges in a closely divided House and Senate.

“I’m not running on the false promises of being able to end this pandemic by flipping a switch. But I do promise this: We will start on day one doing the right things,” he said during a campaign event last month.

Dr. Phillip Coule, chief medical officer at Augusta University Medical Center in Georgia, said he hopes the nation can get past the political divisions that have complicated the response to the virus now that the election is over.

“Now that we are post election, let’s just handle this based on the science and not the politics of this disease and the pandemic,” he said.
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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, said he believes even the most ardent COVID-19 deniers will strike a more conciliatory tone as Trump’s election defeat sinks in.

“I think the political pressure of denying COVID is gone,” he said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “I think you’ll see scientists speak with an unmuzzled voice now. And I think the numbers are going to go up, and Americans are going to get how serious this is.”

The president-elect is limited in what he can legally do before he’s sworn in, but he and his transition team should begin laying the groundwork immediately, said Dr. Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University and former health commissioner for Baltimore.

Establishing some consensus with state leaders on a national response, including a nationwide mask mandate, should be a top priority, she said. Opposition to wearing masks remains a stubborn issue, particularly in some of the hardest-hit states.

“Each state is acting fairly autonomously on their own policies, and we’ve seen how that’s played out,” said Ko, the Yale expert. “This disease needs national and global responses.”
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Overcoming months of mixed messaging on the pandemic is another uphill climb that Biden must start addressing during his transition, said Angela Rasmussen, a virus researcher at Columbia University in New York.

“The past year of misinformation, confusion and gaslighting from the White House has really left people without any trust that our government is capable of handling this,” she said. “It’s going to be critical to begin communicating that, yes, this administration will be led by the science.”

During his first remarks as president-elect, Biden said Saturday that his COVID-19 task force will create a plan “built on bedrock science” and “constructed out of compassion, empathy and concern.”

His surrogates, meanwhile, have spent the days since the election assuring the public the administration will be ready to respond to the pandemic.
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“I think there’s a sense of urgency throughout,” Pete Buttigieg, a former Democratic presidential hopeful who is now on Biden’s transition team, said on Fox News Channel’s “Fox News Sunday.” “We know that every day is bringing more loss, more pain and more danger to the American people, and it’s why he’s not waiting until he’s taking office to begin immediately assembling people who have the right kind of expertise and planning to actually listen to them.”

There’s also hope in the wider medical community that a Biden presidency will help restore US leadership on global public health challenges, including the development and distribution of a vaccine when it becomes available.

Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the chief scientist of the World Health Organization, said she was more optimistic that a Biden administration would join Covax, a WHO-led project aimed to help deploy vaccines to the neediest people worldwide, whether they live in rich or poor countries.

“Everyone recognizes that for a pandemic, you cannot have a country-by-country approach. You need a global approach,” Swaminathan said.

But in Kansas, one of the states seeing a significant surge in virus cases in recent weeks, at least one hospital official remains skeptical about what a new president can do to turn the tide of the pandemic in the US.

“I think the damage is done,” said Kris Mathews, the administrator of Decatur Health, a small hospital in the rural northwest part of the state. “People have made up their minds about how they react to it.”
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Johnny Au said:
Kamala Harris wasn't the first non-White American to hold the position of vice president:

en.wikipedia.org

Charles Curtis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Charles Curtis was Hoover's vice president and Curtis was 3/8 Native American.
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I think she said she was first black, east indian or woman VP. Not first POC VP.
 
Johnny Au said:
Kamala Harris wasn't the first non-White American to hold the position of vice president:

en.wikipedia.org

Charles Curtis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Charles Curtis was Hoover's vice president and Curtis was 3/8 Native American.
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From what I can discern in that bio...........pro-assimilation, pro-residential schools.

😮
 
And speaking of that era, I suppose Biden's the "smallest-state" President since Vermont's Calvin Coolidge.
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1331401463495475200

Open Letter to Biden: Canada Doesn't Want KXL

We want to make it clear that all across Canada, people support your promise to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline.

As we write this, Canada's fossil fuel industry and their friends in government, have already started an all-hands-on-deck lobbying effort to get you to change your mind. But they do not represent us all. In fact, they don’t even represent the opinion of most people in Canada. The overwhelming majority of us are deeply concerned about climate change and support a rapid transition away from fossil fuels.

Like you, we believe this is the moment to tackle the climate crisis and create millions of green jobs. And, we know that building the Keystone XL pipeline doesn’t do either of those things. This pipeline is still what renowned NASA climate scientist James Hansen called it nearly a decade ago – “a fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet”.

You and former President Barack Obama were right when your administration rejected Keystone XL back in 2015. Now, it’s time to do the right thing again.

Cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline is a necessary part of ensuring that both the United States and Canada do our parts to meet the climate crisis. We ask that you do what’s right and stop this pipeline once and for all.
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urbanflight said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1331401463495475200

Open Letter to Biden: Canada Doesn't Want KXL
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I think that this pandemic has taught us alot about shipping our resources internationally for processing and manufacturing.

Years ago Canada used to refine it's own petroleum under the auspices of the then nationalized Petro Canada. It was sold off and prices at the pumps jumped because everything was refined in the US.

My point is that I expect alot more to be done in house going forward
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
If not getting your way made her quit politics, she has no business being there in the first place. Again - do you want to rule, or do you want to stay an activist outside the corridors of power?

AoD
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She wouldn't be the first person to apply for a job without a full understanding of the conditions and requirements of the job.
 
Richard White said:
I think that this pandemic has taught us alot about shipping our resources internationally for processing and manufacturing.

Years ago Canada used to refine it's own petroleum under the auspices of the then nationalized Petro Canada. It was sold off and prices at the pumps jumped because everything was refined in the US.

My point is that I expect alot more to be done in house going forward
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Petro Can was a disaster.

Canada has more resources than it needs. Exporting is necessary.
 
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