Biden tells Trump there's ‘no miracle coming,’ then vows to stop coronavirus… with ‘Covid truth & mandatory masks’?

Instead of “waiting for a miracle” like Donald Trump, Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden has vowed to bring Covid-19 under control – starting with a national mandate to wear masks as a “patriotic duty.”

Biden gave his official acceptance speech on the last night of the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, at one point taking shots at US President Donald Trump’s coronavirus response. But moments after warning that “no miracle is coming,” Biden said his administration would provide just that, promising to roll out a “national strategy” to bring the pandemic under control on “day one.”

“We'll develop and deploy rapid tests with results available immediately. We'll make the medical supplies and protective equipment our country needs,” he said, adding that he would give schools the “resources they need” to reopen safely and allow health experts to tell the “honest, unvarnished truth” about the virus.

We'll have a national mandate to wear a mask – not as a burden, but to protect each other. It's a patriotic duty.

Biden’s optimism was not received well by some netizens, however, with many honing in on the proposed mask mandate, decrying it as draconian and a major imposition on civil liberties.

“Tell me, how would Biden enforce that mandatory mask law in a free country? Fines? Jail? We have the flu virus every year, what if we have this Covid virus every year? I guess masks are forever,” one user wrote.

Another observer noted that by the time Biden makes it into office – assuming a victory in November – the virus may have already subsided, though they predicted the mask mandate would stay in force “forever” regardless.

The Democratic hopeful’s broader promises to rein in Covid-19 were also pilloried for lacking in detail, driving some to ask how he would have handled the crisis any different from Trump – especially given that Biden opposed some of the president’s earlier measures against the virus.

Even from a strategic standpoint, netizens argued that Biden’s guarantees could backfire, potentially handing Trump a “huge weapon” if, contrary to his claims, the virus does taper off by election time after all.

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