民主党总统候选人乔·拜登强烈批评了唐纳德·特朗普总统对冠状病毒大流行的回应，同时提出了他自己应对当前危机的计划。
在一个观点文章发布者纽约时报周日，拜登曾在前总统巴拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)手下担任副总统，现在是预计将在11月挑战特朗普的民主党候选人。他辩称，总统对疫情的应对“导致了灾难性后果”他还提出了自己的想法，认为最好的解决方法是向前看。
新闻周刊已经向白宫寻求对拜登的批评的回应，但是政府在文章发表时还没有回应。
拜登写道，特朗普政府“还没有提供答案”，说明美国如何能够朝着安全重启经济的方向前进。他还指出，经济问题和健康问题是相互关联的，而不是像一些右翼人士所说的那样是分开的。
这位前副总统解释道:“毫无疑问:一个有效的抗击病毒的计划是我们如何让经济回到正轨的最终答案。”。“因此，我们应该停止将健康和经济对策分开考虑。他们不是。”
3月15日，在华盛顿特区的美国有线电视新闻网华盛顿分社演播室，民主党总统候选人乔·拜登出现在第11届民主党2020总统辩论的舞台上
民主党竞争者呼吁采取三大行动。他写道，严格的社会隔离措施需要继续下去，直到新病例的数量大幅下降；测试需要随着接触追踪更加广泛；并且需要“有效的疾病监测”,以使卫生保健部门做好应对未来突发事件的准备。
“一旦我们采取了这些措施，我们就可以开始重新开放更多的企业，让更多的人重返工作岗位。事情不会马上恢复正常，”拜登指出。“正如公共卫生专家所说，我们应该预计活动会逐渐恢复，像办公室和商店这样的场所会在竞技场和剧院之前重新开放，”他补充道。
美国是世界上冠状病毒确诊病例最多的国家。根据约翰·霍普金斯大学的追踪报告，截至周日，美国已有超过53万例确诊病例。其中，超过20，600人已经死亡，超过32，100人已经康复。
特朗普和他的政府因在减缓病毒传播方面反应迟缓而面临卫生专家的严厉批评。A冗长的报告发布者纽约时报周六，奥巴马概述了当冠状病毒开始在全球传播时，总统如何无视情报官员和高级顾问的反复警告。特朗普似乎更关心经济和信息传递，而不是实际遏制疫情的蔓延。
尽管特朗普此后在应对危机时采取了更加阴沉的语气，但他一再提到冠状病毒批评作为民主党的“新骗局”。他还通过将冠状病毒引起的疾病COVID-19与普通流感进行比较，淡化了它带来的威胁——尽管健康专家估计这种新型病毒的致命性至少是普通流感的10到20倍。
批评人士指出，韩国通过快速开展检测和追踪，迅速减轻了辐射的影响。韩国与美国同时出现了首例确诊冠状病毒病例。截至周日上午，韩国仅有10，500多例冠状病毒确诊病例和214例死亡病例。这个东亚国家还能够避开美国各地实施的严格的社会隔离措施。与此同时，美国一直难以达到测试目标，也无法充分追踪病毒的传播。
拜登在他的观点文章中写道:“当我们准备重新开启美国时，我们必须记住这场危机教会了我们什么:政府未能计划、准备、诚实评估和传达对国家的威胁导致了灾难性的后果。”。“我们不能重复那些错误。”
JOE BIDEN SAYS TRUMP HASN'T PROVIDED AN ANSWER ON HOW TO SAFELY REOPEN AMERICA, UNVEILS HIS OWN PLAN
Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden has strongly criticized President Donald Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic, while laying out his own plan to respond to the ongoing crisis.
In an opinion article published by The New York Times Sunday, Biden, who served as vice president under former President Barack Obama and is now the presumptive Democratic nominee to challenge Trump in November, argued that the president's response to the pandemic had "led to catastrophic results." He also presented his thoughts on the best path forward to deal with the fallout moving forward.
Newsweek has reached out to the White House for a response to Biden's criticism, but the administration had not responded by the time of publication.
Biden wrote that the Trump administration "hasn't supplied an answer" as to how the U.S. can move toward safely reopening the economy. He also noted that the economic concerns and health concerns were interconnected, not separate, as some on the right have suggested.
"Make no mistake: An effective plan to beat the virus is the ultimate answer to how we get our economy back on track," the former vice president explained. "So we should stop thinking of the health and economic responses as separate. They are not."
Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden is seen on stage at 11th Democratic Party 2020 presidential debate in a CNN Washington Bureau studio in Washington, D.C. on March 15
The Democratic contender called for three broad actions. He wrote that stringent social distancing measures needed to continue until the number of new cases declined significantly; that testing needed to be much more widespread along with contact tracing; and that "effective disease surveillance" would be required to prepare the health care sector for future flare ups.
"Once we have taken these steps, we can begin to reopen more businesses and put more people back to work. Things will not go back to 'normal' right away," Biden noted. "As public health experts have said, we should expect activity to return gradually, with sites like offices and stores reopening before arenas and theaters," he added.
The U.S. has by far the highest number of confirmed cases of coronavirus of any country in the world. As of Sunday, there were over 530,000 confirmed cases in the U.S., according to a tracker by Johns Hopkins University. Of those, more than 20,600 have died while over 32,100 have already recovered.
Trump and his administration have faced significant criticism from health experts for their slow response to mitigating the spread of the virus. A lengthy report published by The New York Times on Saturday outlined how the president had ignored repeated warnings from intelligence officials and top advisers as the coronavirus began to spread globally. Trump appeared to be more concerned about the economy as well as messaging than actually clamping down on mitigating the outbreak's spread.
While Trump has since taken a more somber tone in addressing the crisis, he repeatedly referred to the coronavirus criticism as a "new hoax" from the Democrats. He also downplayed the threat posed by COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, by comparing it to the common flu--despite health experts estimating that the novel virus is at least 10 to 20 times more deadly.
Critics have noted that South Korea, which had its first confirmed case of coronavirus at the same time as the U.S., was quick to mitigate the fallout by rapidly rolling out testing and tracing. As of Sunday morning, South Korea had only just over 10,500 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 214 deaths. The East Asian nation was also able to avoid the stringent social distancing measures implemented across the U.S. Meanwhile, the U.S. has struggled to meet testing targets and has been unable to adequately trace the virus' spread.
"As we prepare to reopen America, we have to remember what this crisis has taught us: The administration's failure to plan, to prepare, to honestly assess and communicate the threat to the nation led to catastrophic results," Biden wrote in his opinion article. "We cannot repeat those mistakes."
