#Joe Biden calls for nationwide mask mandate

“#Joe Biden calls for nationwide mask mandate”

August 13, 2020 | 4:10pm | Updated August 13, 2020 | 4:16pm

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday called for an immediate nationwide mask mandate for the next three months, providing few specifics but saying the measure could save 40,000 people.

“I hope we learned a lesson. Hope the president has learned the lesson. But again, this is not about Democrat, Republican or independent. This is about saving Americans’ lives,” he said during a brief speech in Wilmington, Del.

“So let’s just institute a mass mandate nationwide starting immediately. And we will save — the estimates are that we will save 40,000 lives in the next three months once that is done.”

Biden made the comments after he and Sen. Kamala Harris, his running mate, received a briefing from a panel of health experts about the coronavirus, which has killed more than 166,000 Americans.

“Be a patriot. Protect your fellow citizens. Step up,” said Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. “Do the right thing.”

“There’s overwhelming evidence, overwhelming evidence, that the mask and depending on the type of mask you wear, increases exponentially the prospect that you, if you are a carrier and you don’t even know it, you will not affect anyone when you cough, sneeze, sing, shout,” he said.

Joe Biden in a mask — Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Biden’s remarks Thursday seem to go farther than his previous comments about mask wearing.

He did not take any questions from reporters following his remarks.

Earlier this summer, he said that if elected, he would make wearing a mask in public compulsory.

“The one thing we do know is these masks make a gigantic difference. I would insist that everybody out in public be wearing that mask. Anyone to reopen would have to make sure that they walked into a business that had masks,” Biden, who typically wears a mask during public appearances, said in June.

Trump, who wore a mask in public for the first time last month during a tour of Walter Reed military hospital, has suggested Americans wear a face covering and that it is a patriotic gesture, but said he would not make it compulsory.