What President Biden Inherits

Summary

As President Joe Biden takes office, he inherits:

• The worst disease outbreak in over a century, which is spreading faster and killing more people in the U.S. than at any time since it began one year ago.
• Highly effective vaccines that so far have reached only 4% of the public.
• An economy struggling with 10 million jobless and millions more out of the workforce.
• A rising tide of murders — up nearly 36% last year in major cities.
• Federal debt the highest since World War II, as a percentage of the U.S. economy, and an annual deficit running at $2.3 trillion this year — even before Biden asks for a $1.9 trillion aid package.
• More monthly illegal border crossings from Mexico than before Donald Trump took office, despite 453 miles of new or upgraded barriers along the nearly 2,000-mile line.

These are some of the numbers by which the future successes or failures of the new president will be measured.

Analysis

COVID-19

The Disease — Biden takes office exactly one year after the first case of COVID-19 was diagnosed in the United States on Jan. 20, 2020.

The virus is still raging out of control, killing thousands more people in the U.S. each day. According to statistics compiled by Johns Hopkins University, 174,589 new confirmed cases were added yesterday alone, and 2,727 deaths. That brings the total U.S. death toll to more than 401,000.

The U.S. has so far done poorly at controlling the virus compared with other nations. In fact, it leads all other countries in the number of COVID-19 deaths. The U.S. has less than 4.3% of the world’s population but accounts for 19.5% of worldwide COVID-19 fatalities. Relative to size of population, the U.S. death rate from the disease is the 10th highest among the 237 countries tracked by the World Health Organization.

Two very effective vaccines against the virus that causes COVID-19 were approved for emergency use in the U.S. about a month before Biden took office. Pfizer-BioNTech got its authorization and Moderna’s came a week later on . Since then and Prevention. That includes 2 million who have received the full two-dose regimen required for maximum effectiveness.