Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP

Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden and his Vice President running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, have called for a national mask mandate after a consultation with medical and public health experts.

Biden told reporters after the discussion that the mandate should be for at least the next three months, citing the estimate that at least 40,000 lives will be saved.

“It’s not about your rights,” he said, “It’s about your responsibilities as an American.”

Harris added, “That’s what real leadership looks like,” she said. “We just witnessed real leadership.”

She said a Biden-Harris Administration will set up a Pandemic Testing Board to ensure that tens of millions of tests are delivered, that a trace and track system is established, and that a vaccine is developed and distributed.

The candidates met the experts as the US death toll reached 167,253, an increase of 1,227 in 24 hours. Confirmed cases are 5,254,878, with 57,760 on Thursday.

Trump, who has spread disinformation throughout the pandemic and pushed aside Government experts such as Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, said Biden’s views are “anti-scientific”. He portrayed the mask mandate as seeking to keep Americans “in their basements for months on end”.

But a Monmouth University poll indicated a majority of Americans have lost faith in Trump over the crisis: 57% said he is doing a bad job, with ony 40% expressing approval. Defying Trump’s falsehoods of low US case and mortality rates, 52% said the American response was worse than that of other countries, with only 15% saying the response is better.

Less than 4 in 10 (38%) of Americans express confidence that the US can limit the outbreak over the next few weeks.

Biden and Harris also were briefed on the economic situation by specialists such as former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen.

Harris said afterwards:

I think it’s important that the American people, looking at the election coming up, ask the current occupant of the White House: When am I going to get vaccinated?

Because there may be some grand gestures offered by the current president about a vaccine. But it really doesn’t matter until you can answer the question: When am I going to get vaccinated?