US President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden have clashed on the coronavirus pandemic, both putting forward their plans to bring America out of the worst health crisis if voted to power.
The US is the worst-affected country from the pandemic with over 200,000 Americans losing their lives to the disease. The virus has also battered the country’s economy with millions of people losing their jobs.
Trump, a Republican, and Biden are pitted against each other for the November 3 presidential election.
“Our plan will crush the virus. And actually, Biden’s plan will crush America, if you think about it. You can’t lock down. Again, we’re growing at levels that nobody has ever seen before. Our plan is unleashing a rapid recovery. Our opponent’s plan would hurt America very badly. It would send us into a depression,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday, asserting that his Democratic challenger would not have been able to handle the pandemic.
“Our approach is pro-science. Biden’s approach is anti-science. I don’t think they know what their approach is, although a lot of it’s copied from what we’ve done,” Trump said.
Talking about Johnson & Johnson announcing that their vaccine candidate has reached the final stage of clinical trials, Trump said, “this is record time. This is the fourth vaccine candidate in the United States to reach the final stage of trial. So, we have four candidates already at a very late date. ‘Late’ being a very positive word, in this case,” he said.
Trump also announced that his administration is awarding $200 million of CARES Act funding to all 50 states to prepare to distribute the vaccine to high-risk residents.