U.S. President-elect Joe Biden plans to publicly receive a COVID-19 vaccine injection on Monday in an effort to boost confidence in its safety ahead of its wide distribution next year.
Biden has vowed to make the fight against the coronavirus, which has killed more than 300,000 Americans and infected more than 17 million, his top priority when he takes office on Jan. 20. At age 78, he is in the high-risk group for the highly contagious respiratory disease.
Republican President Donald Trump, who lost the Nov. 3 election to his Democratic rival, frequently downplayed the severity of the pandemic and oversaw a response health experts say was disorganized and cavalier and sometimes ignored the science behind disease transmission.
Trump was infected with the virus in the fall and multiple members of his inner circle and White House staff have also been infected. The outgoing president, making unsubstantiated claims of widespread electoral fraud, has focused on trying to overturn his election loss in recent weeks, even as daily COVID-19 deaths soared.
On Sunday, Trump’s campaign said it had filed a petition again asking the U.S. Supreme Court to upend the election results by overturning Pennsylvania court rulings involving mail ballots. Some members of Congress, where agreement was reached on Sunday on a new relief package in response to the pandemic, dismissed the challenge.
“I think based on the 57 cases and the initial rulings, you know, any fair-minded person would have to conclude that there’s a narrow, there’s a narrow path for the election to be overturned,” said Republican Senator John Kennedy.
