Joe Biden: ‘No Miracle Is Coming’ for Coronavirus Pandemic

Former Vice President Joe Biden said during his nomination acceptance speech on the final night of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) that “no miracle is coming” to curtail the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

“The president keeps telling us, ‘the virus is going to disappear.’ He keeps waiting for a miracle,” Biden said Thursday night at the DNC. “Well I have news for him: no miracle is coming.”

“We lead the world in confirmed cases. We lead the world in deaths,” he continued. “Our economy is in tatters with black, Latino, Asian American, and Native American communities bearing the brunt of it.”

“And after all this time, the president still does not have a plan. Well, I do,” he said.

Biden then mentioned of a few of his plans to combat the virus, which included “a national mandate to wear a mask.” He called the use of masks a “patriotic duty,” echoing a line earlier in the night from former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.

“We’ll develop and deploy rapid tests with results available immediately,” Biden explained. “We’ll make the medical supplies and protective equipment that our country needs.”

“And we’ll make them here in America, so we will never again be at the mercy if China or other foreign countries in order to protect our own people,” he insisted.

The first hour of Thursday’s presentation repeatedly declared that Biden is a man of “deep faith,” culminating in a speech from his longtime Senate colleague Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE):

For Joe, faith isn’t a prop or a political tool. I’ve known Joe about 30 years and I’ve seen his faith in action. Joe knows the power of prayer, and I’ve seen him in moments of joy and triumph, of loss and despair, turn to God for strength… Joe’s faith is really about our future, about a world with less suffering and more justice, where we’re better stewards of creation, where we have a more just immigration policy, and where we call out and confront the original sins of this nation, the sins of slavery and racism.

Between Coons’ speech and the keynote speech, former mayor Pete Buttigieg declined to mention Biden’s Catholic faith when praising his “political courage” to support same-sex marriage before then-President Barack Obama.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler at @alana, and on Instagram.