Good morning. Joe Biden talks about his plans on Covid and more. |
 | | Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in Wilmington, Del., yesterday.Amr Alfiky/The New York Times |
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Biden’s virus plan — and what it’s missing |
“It will be the first priority, the second priority and the third priority — to deal with Covid and bring down the spread and bring down the death rate,” President-elect Joe Biden told me during a phone call yesterday. |
I had asked how he would try to persuade Americans to make one final push to change their behavior in early 2021 and reduce the virus’s spread. Doing so could save tens of thousands of lives. |
His answer was full of details that make it clear he is listening to public health experts. He will ask Americans to wear masks and will require them where he can, he said. He will ask governors to take similar steps and to wear masks themselves as role models. |
The current rate of infection is “staggering,” Biden said. “It’s going to be incredibly high — the damage and the death toll.” |
But I think his answer was also missing something important — something that will go a long way toward determining how successful he is in reducing Covid deaths. It was missing an emotional component. |
In Biden’s view, Americans already understand the need to bring down the infection rate in the months ahead, while the vaccine is being rolled out. “There’s a new sense of urgency on the part of the public at large,” he said to me and the handful of other journalists on the call. “The American public is being made painfully aware of the extent and damage and incredibly high cost of failing to take the kind of measures we’ve been talking about.” |
That seems a bit optimistic. The number of new daily cases has risen more than fivefold since Labor Day largely because Americans are tired of staying at home and of all the other disruptions to normal life — and understandably so. It’s pretty miserable. |
Yet it is also clear that our impatience is killing people. Almost 20,000 Americans died of confirmed Covid cases in the past week, and next week’s toll will probably be worse. |
The start of Biden’s presidency will give him an opportunity to deliver not just a scientific message but also an emotional one. He can make it clear that he understands people’s frustration — but that they need to redouble their efforts for a few more months, for the sake of themselves, their families and their communities. |
He has made some steps in this direction, like his plan to ask Americans to wear masks for his first 100 days in office. He added an intriguing idea on yesterday’s call: He said that his administration would do more to publicize research about the social situations in which the virus spreads — which in turn could make people feel more comfortable socializing in ways that don’t seem to spread the virus. Effective public health messaging isn’t only about telling people what not to do, as Julia Marcus of Harvard Medical School has emphasized. |
One of Biden’s greatest strengths is his ability to look on the positive side. It has allowed him to overcome personal tragedy and helped him win the presidency. But optimism alone doesn’t quite capture the situation with the virus. On the current path, many Americans will needlessly die in the first months of Biden’s presidency. |
 | | New reported cases by day. This chart shows data for the U.S.Source: New York Times |
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What Biden said on other topics: |
- He expressed confidence in his ability to forge bipartisan compromises and said the same people doubting his ability to do so had previously questioned his ability to win the presidency. “I respectfully suggest I beat the hell out of everyone else,” he said. “So I think I know what I’m doing.”
- He cited a $15 minimum wage and climate policies as two areas where he was optimistic. “I’m going to be able to get stuff done on the environment you all are not going to believe,” he said, explaining that Americans were now experiencing the effects of climate change and demanding change. “I couldn’t have gotten it done six years ago,” he added.
- Biden said he was appointing people with significant government experience partly because of the damage the Trump administration had done to the federal government: “One of the reasons you need old hands is that old hands know where the old bodies may be buried.”
- He criticized the idea, favored by some Democrats, of using executive action to forgive $50,000 in student debt per borrower: “I think that’s pretty questionable,” he said. “I’d be unlikely to do that.” But he suggested he was open to forgiving $10,000.
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 | | President Trump and Melania Trump leaving the White House yesterday.Oliver Contreras for The New York Times |
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- President Trump granted clemency to Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman; Roger Stone, his friend and confidant; Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner; and other loyalists in a new batch of pardons and commutations.
- Trump vetoed a $740 billion military spending bill that would rename military bases named for Confederate leaders. The bill’s supporters may have enough votes to override this veto.
- Trump’s criticism of the virus stimulus bill has angered congressional Republicans and given Democrats an opening to say that they, like Trump, favor bigger one-time checks for families. The bill passed this week with large enough margins that Congress may be able to override a veto, if Trump issues one.
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 | | Eli Lilly’s antibody treatment at Floyd Medical Center in Rome, Ga.Floyd Medical Center |
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- Bureaucratic problems have kept hospitals from using two promising antibody drugs to treat Covid, and doses are sitting unused in many U.S. hospitals.
- A Black doctor in Indiana has died from complications of the virus, two weeks after posting a video on Facebook in which she accused a white doctor of downplaying her complaints of pain.
- The resurgence of the virus is hurting the U.S. economy: Personal income fell in November for the second straight month, and consumer spending declined for the first time since April.
- The Washington Football Team fined its quarterback Dwayne Haskins $40,000 and removed his captaincy as punishment for partying while not wearing a mask.
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- Britain and the European Union seem to be on the cusp of a post-Brexit trade agreement. Without a deal in place by Jan. 1, Britain and the E.U. would default to World Trade Organization rules, levying tariffs on each other’s goods.
- A Hong Kong judge granted bail to the pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai, but restricted him from using social media, giving interviews or leaving his home.
- China opened an antitrust investigation into the e-commerce giant Alibaba, escalating a regulatory pushback against the business empire of the company’s co-founder Jack Ma.
- The National Weather Service predicts a “wide range of hazardous weather” — including blizzards in the Midwest and freezing temperatures in the South — through Christmas Day.
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 | | Waiting for the northern lights around a fire in Sweden.Marcus Westberg |
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Uplift: With all of his foreign assignments canceled this year, a Swedish photographer refocused his lens on his home. The results are a wintry wonderland. |
From Opinion: Religious services aren’t the same over Zoom. “We stay because attendance is not about what the church gives us; it is our way of offering something to God,” writes Esau McCaulley of Wheaton College. |
Lives Lived: The detachment and relative maturity of the British model Stella Tennant — who was an inspiration to designers like Karl Lagerfeld and Gianni Versace — served her well in a business notorious for flightiness. She died at 50. |
Rebecca Luker’s three decades on Broadway brought her three Tony Award nominations. But she did not identify as a show-tunes type. “I love rock music and jazz,” she said. “I love the ’70s stuff I grew up with.” She died at 59. |
 | | Duke Ellington, left, and Billy Strayhorn at a Manhattan recording studio in the 1950s.George Rinhart/Corbis, via Getty Images |
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By the late 1950s, Billy Strayhorn — the songwriter and Duke Ellington collaborator — was growing tired of rearranging classic swing tunes for Ellington’s band. So Strayhorn set himself a much more audacious challenge: Reimagine Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” suite for big-band jazz. |
Together, Strayhorn and Ellington spent months working on the project, both in person and on the phone. When Strayhorn was by himself, he would hum, whistle and even dance while writing the music, David Hajdu explains in “Lush Life,” his biography of Strayhorn. |
The result was a masterpiece. Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Reed Flutes” became “Toot Toot Tootie Toot” and “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” became “Sugar Rum Cherry.” |
One of my favorite December traditions is to listen to a live performance of the piece. Unfortunately, that’s not possible this year. But there is an alternative: a new live recording of Ellington’s and Strayhorn’s “Nutcracker” by the Eric Felten Orchestra, available on Spotify, Apple Music, or CD. Give it a try. |
“Here’s hoping that come next year there will be a grand restoration of activities that we all do together,” Felten told me. Until then, we can still enjoy some great music. |
 | | Johnny Miller for The New York Times |
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Essay collections from Joan Didion and George Saunders are among The Times’s list of 13 books to watch for in January. |
George Clooney talks about his new Netflix movie and why he doesn’t think theaters will be going away anytime soon. |
The pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was phantom. Today’s puzzle is above — or you can play online if you have a Games subscription. |
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David |
Today’s episode of “The Daily” is an update on how a Brooklyn hospital is doing in the pandemic. |
Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. |
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