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Former Vice President Joe Biden is calling for expanded coronavirus testing and the formation of a public-health jobs corps, as some U.S. states are taking steps to reopen their economies.
In a plan released Monday by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and his public-health advisory committee, Biden points a finger at President Donald Trump’s administration by saying “we are still seeing a massive shortfall and extensive disparities between states in testing — that’s unacceptable.”
“Those failures are in no small part due to the federal government mishandling and delaying the pandemic response,” writes Biden and his six-person health committee.
Biden’s plan comes as governors are setting their own timelines on when parts of their economies shut down by the coronavirus can reopen. In Georgia, gyms, hair salons, bowling alleys and tattoo parlors were allowed to reopen on April 24. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said a limited reopening in his state could begin on May 15, while New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is expected to reveal a plan on Monday.
Trump said last week that he believed the U.S. is doing a “great job” on testing.
Biden’s proposal calls for what he dubs a U.S. Public Health Jobs Corps of at least 100,000 people, whose members could help with “contact tracing,” or identifying people to whom the infected may have spread the COVID-19 disease.
The U.S. currently has the highest case toll for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, at 965,933 and the highest death toll at 54,877.
U.S. stocks SPX, +1.27% rose on Monday, as coronavirus lockdowns began to ease in several countries and individual U.S. states started to reopen or outlined plans to ease restrictions.
Read:Stocks rise to kick off busiest week of earnings, with coronavirus lockdowns set to ease.
