[France24] Democrat Joe Biden said Friday that if elected president he would mandate coronavirus vaccines be free for all Americans, part of a national strategy to "get ahead of this virus.""Once we have a safe and effective vaccine, it has to be free to everyone -- whether or not you're insured," Biden said in a speech laying out his pandemic response plan just 11 days before the US presidential election.
President Donald Trump, who trails Biden in the polls, has also stressed that a vaccine -- which he says will be ready in the coming weeks -- should be free.
But Democrats led by Biden have hammered Trump for failing to lay out and implement a nationwide response to a pandemic that has now killed more than 223,000 Americans.
"Covid-19 dwarfs anything that we've faced in recent history, and it isn't showing any signs of slowing down. The virus is surging in almost every state," Biden said in a speech in Wilmington, Delaware.
"We're more than eight months into this crisis and the president still doesn't have a plan," the 77-year-old former vice president said.