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Joe Biden will speak Wednesday on developing and distributing a COVID-19 vaccine, as the coronavirus pandemic features ever more significantly in the race for the White House.
The Democratic presidential nominee will be briefed by public health experts in Wilmington, Del., “on developing and equitably distributing a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine,” his campaign said. He will deliver remarks afterwards.
Globally, the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is moving closer to 30 million. The U.S. accounts for 6.6 million of those cases, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.
Polling shows Biden has the edge over President Donald Trump on whom voters trust more to handle the pandemic. In August, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 58% of registered voters disapproved of Trump’s pandemic management.
Now see:Trump, Xi and Putin are least trusted leaders during pandemic; Merkel is most trusted.
The pandemic has been thrust anew into the campaign by Trump’s acknowledgment to journalist Bob Woodward that he played down the seriousness of the coronavirus in his public remarks for weeks. Trump responded by saying he was trying to prevent “panic.”
The federal government, meanwhile, outlined a sweeping plan Wednesday to make vaccines for COVID-19 available for free to all Americans, even as polls show a strong undercurrent of skepticism rippling across the U.S.
In a report to Congress and an accompanying “playbook” for states and localities, federal health agencies and the Defense Department sketched out complex plans for a vaccination campaign to begin gradually in January or possibly later this year, eventually ramping up to reach any American who wants a shot.
U.S. stocks SPX, +0.46% traded higher Wednesday as investors parsed a reading on U.S. retail sales in August amid the COVID-19 pandemic and waited for a policy update from the Federal Reserve due later in the session.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
