Vaccine process should be grounded in science, fully transparent: Joe Biden

WASHINGTON: US President-elect Joe Biden on Monday said that the vaccine process to fight the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic should be "grounded in science and fully transparent" to the American people.

While speaking from Wilmington, Delaware after being briefed by his newly formed coronavirus board, Biden said: "We just received positive news in this fight with an announcement that there's been progress made toward a successful vaccine. Soon the expectation is that the FDA will run the process of rigorous reviews and approvals, and the process must also be grounded in science and fully transparent so the American people can have every confidence that any approved vaccine is safe and effective."

Biden further mentioned that it was clear that the vaccine would not be widely available for many more months to come.

"Although we are not in office yet, I am still laying what we expect to do, and hope can be done somewhere between now and the time we are sworn in. The purpose of this is to let you know what we are going to do when we are in and so there is a bold action to fight this pandemic."

The President-elect also spoke on facing a "dark winter" and that the country was nearing 10 million Covid-19 cases.

Biden on Monday announced his coronavirus task force with three-co-chairs Indian American Vivek H Murthy, Surgeon General during the Obama administration, David Kessler, Food and Drug Administration commissioner under Presidents George HW Bush and Bill Clinton, and Marcella Nunez-Smith, associate dean for health equity research at the Yale School of Medicine, Washington Post reported.

The US is the worst-coronavirus impacted country in the world with reporting over one lakh daily coronavirus cases.

The United States became the first nation worldwide since the pandemic began to surpass 10 million coronavirus infections.