THE US coronavirus death toll passed a quarter of a Million on Wednesday – just hours after Joe Biden warned that a vaccine roll-out could be delayed for months because of President Trump’s refusal to concede the election.
The grim milestone – confirmed by Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus resource center – surpasses the 240,000-death prediction made by Covid task force expert Dr Anthony Fauci back in March.
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As of 6pm on Wednesday, the coronavirus death toll hit 250,029 in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins.
The new number is 10,000 deaths more than what Dr Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, predicted at the start of the pandemic.
Coronavirus deaths have plagued the US, as more than 1,346,000 have died across the globe.
In addition to the increasing death toll, the US Department of Defense has also recorded a record high number of coronavirus cases in one day, a CNN Pentagon correspondent reports.
The DOD found 1,314 new cases on Tuesday alone.
“Right now about 25,000 cases in the ranks, dozens of bases across the country now back at ‘Charlie’ – a rating for strict health protection measures,” Barbara Starr tweeted.
The number of coronavirus cases across the nation has peaked to 11,485,176.
The US has suffered more than 100,000 daily infections for two weeks straight and on Monday reported more than 166,000 new cases.
As a response to the surging Covid cases, Americans have started panic-buying toilet paper and essentials again.
And as the holiday season nears, Dr Fauci has suggested that people need to avoid large gatherings this year.
Dr Fauci said last month: “You may have to bite the bullet and sacrifice that social gathering unless you’re pretty certain that the people that you’re dealing with are not infected.”
Meanwhile, President-elect Biden said his plan to rollout a Covid-19 vaccine may be delayed by months because of Donald Trump’s refusal to concede.
Biden’s comments come as:
The dire warning came as it was revealed the United States will have around 40 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna’s Covid vaccines – which are around 95 percent effective – by the end of the year.
Despite the positive news, the president-elect said distributing the vaccines may “be behind by weeks or months” as a result of Trump denying the election results.
“We should be further along,” Biden said during his virtual meeting from Wilmington, Delaware. “There’s a whole lot of things that we just don’t have available to us.”
He said a handover of power was necessary for the new leader to get access to all the relevant information, data, and the means of distributing it.
News of a vaccine emerged with Pfizer, which is now 95 percent effective, followed by Moderna’s two-dose remedy that was 95 percent effective.
Speaking about the rollout, Biden said: “I am optimistic but we should be further along. One of the problems that we’re having now is the failure of the administration to recognize [the election results].
“The law says that the General Services Administration (GSA) has a person who recognizes who the winner is.
“And then, they have to have access to all the data and information that the government possesses to be prepared.
Biden said it stated the GSA determined the “apparent winner.”
“We’ve been unable to get access to the kinds of things we need to know like the depth of the stockpiles – we know there’s not much at all.
“We get to the point where we have a sense of when these vaccines come out, how they’ll be distributed, who’ll be first in line or what the plan is.”
Biden pointed out that “300 million Americans and beyond” have to be taken care of.
“Unless it’s made available soon, we’re going to be behind by weeks or months from being able to put together the whole initiative,” Biden explained.
“[This relates} to the biggest promise we have with two drug companies coming along and finding 95 percent effectiveness, efficiency in the vaccines – which is enormous promise.
“So I just want to tell you that. This is the only slow-down right now that we have. We put together I think a first-rate team that you’d all be proud of. And we’re all ready to go and doing an awful lot of work right now.”
Speaking about the vaccine rollout, HHS Secretary Alex Azar told a Just The News journalist that: “By the end of December, we expect to have about 40, million doses of these two vaccines available for distribution.
Today alone, Trump has made multiple unfounded allegation of “voter fraud” on Twitter, claiming the election was “rigged” and that there were “more votes than people” in Detroit, Michigan.
Twitter labeled most of his statements as “disputed” or flagged that “multiple sources called this election differently,” while several Trump campaign lawsuits were denied by judges in battleground states.
As of November 18, Trump has yet to concede to Biden. In 2016, Hillary Clinton acknowledged Trump’s win the day after the election.
A Reuters report published on Wednesday revealed that around half of Republicans believe that the election was “stolen” from the outgoing president, a claim which is based on no concrete evidence.
Earlier this morning, his press secretary Kayleigh McEnany insisted that th White House will handle Covid-19 in a “second Trump term” as she lashed out at the “Orwellian” virus rules.
Her comments come as the second wave resulted in at least 100,000 daily cases in the United States, forcing governors to implement new restrictions to stop the spread.
But later, Biden said this repeated refusal to hand over power was affecting the vaccine rollout after picking his task force team.
Last week, Fauci disagreed with the president-elect’s chief Covid-19 advisor, Dr Michael Osterholms, calls for a six-week lockdown as cases soar in the midwest and elsewhere.
“We would like to stay away from that because there’s no appetite for locking down the American public,” Fauci said on Good Morning America last Thursday.
But the disease expert recently said all Americans could have access to the touted vaccine by next April after recently saying November was a possibility.
After Pfizer announced their vaccine was successful in clinical trials, the disease expert told CNN: “We’re talking probably by April, the end of April.”
The development was praised by both Trump and President-Elect Biden before Moderna made their announcement.
