President-elect Joe Biden is taking aim at some Republican members of Congress who refused to wear masks while huddling in secure rooms last week through the storming of the Capitol.
"It was shocking to observe members of this Congress while the Capitol was under siege with a mortal mob of thugs refuse to wear a mask while they had been in secure locations," the president-elect mentioned on Friday. Biden spoke as he unveiled what he called a"bold" strategy to speed up the distribution of coronavirus vaccinations he termed a"dismal failure" beneath President Trump's government.
He added:"It's time to develop. The result -- at least four members of Congress today -- including a cancer survivor -- currently have COVID-19 who were in these rooms."
Members of Congress were quickly moved to secure areas at the Capitol after the chair of the country's government was attacked in an insurrrection established by right-wing extremists and other Trump supporters who were trying to disrupt congressional certificate of Biden's election victory.
In his address, Biden reiterated his request for Americans to put on masks to get its first 100 days of his administration, which begins next Wednesday since the president-elect is inaugurated. And Biden repeated that he'll issue an executive order requiring masks for federal employees and on national property, in addition to for interstate traveling on trains and airplanes.
"This is not a political problem," Biden said. "It's all about saving lives. I know that it's turned into a partisan issue, but what a dumb, dumb thing for it to happen. And he said experts predict that mask-wearing over the next 100 days could stop up to 50,000 deaths from the coronavirus by April.
The president-elect's speech -- which he gave in his hometown of Wilmington, Del., came new cases of this virus continue to spike across the country. Almost 390,000 people in the U.S. have expired of COVID since the pandemic swept the nation almost a year ago. Over 23.4 million people in the U.S. happen to be infected with the virus as it first struck. And on Tuesday, over 4,300 deaths nationally were connected to the virus, a new one-day high.
