President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will continue to travel even as the CDC warns against non-essential fligh...
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will continue to travel even as the CDC warns against non-essential flights amid a rise in coronavirus cases, the White House said on Monday.
'Well I would say the president travels - as the vice president - on a private plane,' White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at her daily briefing. 'That is the purview of every president and vice president throughout American history. That is of course different than traveling on a commercial flight.'
She then got in a shot at former President Donald Trump, who held multiple campaign rallies during the 2020 election despite health experts warning against mass gatherings. The Trump campaign held the rallies outside in a concession to the pandemic but didn't require attendees to wear face masks, arguing it was a personal choice.
'The president is not hosting rallies, nor is the vice president. We take the role of being models quite seriously. But I think most Americans would recognize the difference,' Psaki added.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will continue to travel despite CDC asking it be restricted to 'essential'
White House said President Joe Biden also will continue to travel home to Wilmington, Delaware, as he did this past weekend
She said Biden would also continue to travel to his private home in Wilmington, Delaware, as he did this past weekend.
'What I'm conveying is that president, as any president does, travels on Air Force One, whether he's traveling to visit a community in this country or whether he is traveling to go to his home state of Delaware,' she said. 'I think most people recognize that as being a difference.'
The White House's stance on travel came as the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made an impassioned plea to Americans not to let their guard down in the fight against COVID.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky grew emotional as she described a feeling of 'impending doom' amid a possible fourth surge.
'I am going to pause here, I'm going to lose the script and I am going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom. We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope,' she said. 'But right now, I'm scared.'
Walensky pointed to an uptick in travel and loosening virus restrictions for the increase in cases.
'We've seen surges after every single holiday,' she said: 'Please limit travel to essential travel for the time being.'
In the past week, the average number of new daily infections has risen by 10 percent to nearly 60,00 a day, according to the CDC's data.
And hospitalizations have risen to more than 4,800 new admissions a day.
Even new daily deaths, a metric that typically doesn't rise until weeks after new infections increase, have increased by about three percent, to just shy of 1,000 a day, compared to the prior seven-day rolling average.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki got in a shot at former President Trump (above), saying President Biden wasn't traveling to campaign rallies
Dr. Anthony Fauci called it a race between the vaccination rate - the US is giving around 2 million shots in the arm per day - and the spread of COVID and its variants.
'It will be a race between the vaccine and what's going on with the dynamics of the outbreak. And we can win this by just hanging in there a bit longer,' Fauci said.
Walensky pointed at the fourth surge that is now in full swing in countries like Germany, Italy and France. She said that the trends in cases, hospitalizations and deaths in those countries looked
She issued a plea with Americans to redouble their efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 and to encourage their friends families and social networks to do the same.
'I'm asking you to just hold on a little longer, to please get vaccinated when you can, so that all those people we all love will still be here when the pandemic is over,' Walensky said in an emotional plea.
After hovering for weeks at about 50,000, the seven-day rolling average of new COVID cases in the U.S. is now more than 63,000, with 43,694 new infections recorded Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
More than half of states saw new cases rise by more than 10 percent last week, compared to the preceding week, and Michigan officials say the surge dreaded nationwide is already upon the state.
Another 506 Americans died of COVID-19 on Sunday.
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