US President Joe Biden launched a national strategy to curb the raging coronavirus pandemic on his first full day in office on Thursday. Biden's strategy aims to restore trust in the government, ramp up the vaccination program, expand testing and mask-wearing, safely reopen schools and businesses, and advance racial equity. "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 White House said in a statement. "The National Strategy provides a roadmap to guide America out of the worst public health crisis in a century." The plan also outlines a dozen executive actions to be issued by Biden during his first two days in office, the statement continued. The new Democratic president is set to deliver remarks on his administration's COVID-19 response and sign executive orders later on Thursday. The "National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness," previewed in a 21-page summary on Wednesday evening by Biden's advisers, outlines the kind of muscular and highly coordinated federal response that Democrats have long demanded and the former President Donald Trump refused. "What we're inheriting is so much worse than we could have imagined," said Jeff Zients, the new White House COVID-19 response coordinator, adding, "The cooperation or lack of cooperation from the Trump administration has been an impediment. We don't have the visibility that we would hope to have into supply and allocations." — Agencies
