Here’s the latest on the US election.
More than 4,500 Covid-19 deaths have been recorded in the US since election day, but Donald Trump has failed to mention the virus once since.
The current president – who appears increasingly likely to lose the presidential race and be forced out of the White House by Joe Biden – has given two rambling speeches since polls closed on Tuesday, November 4.
The words “coronavirus” or “Covid-19″ did not appear once, despite Trump finding ample time to spread baseless conspiracy theories about electoral fraud and threaten legal action over a legitimate election.
A total of 1,134 people were reported dead in the US on election day itself, 1,097 on Wednesday, 1,210 on Thursday and 1,152 on Friday, according to date kept by John Hopkins University.
In the same time frame almost 450,000 people have tested positive for the virus, with record numbers of cases recorded. The total number of confirmed cases has exceeded 100,000 each day since Wednesday.
Despite being known as a prolific Twitter user, tweeting dozens of times over the past few days about electoral fraud (with no evidence) and calling for the counting of legitimate votes to be stopped, Trump also has not referred to the deadly virus since the election via his account – apart from to share a handful of articles criticising Covid safety measures imposed during the vote and subsequent count.
Trump has been criticised globally for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The US has so far seen more than 230,000 deaths – by far the highest total in the world – and within a few days is likely to surpass 10 million confirmed cases, with the current total standing at 9.7m.
It is a disaster which may have cost Trump the presidency. Though several key states are yet to declare, Joe Biden has chipped away at Trump’s lead and looks set to claim victory in what has been an extremely close election.
Fighting Covid-19 has formed the central element of Biden’s campaign, with promises to tackle the virus head-on and implement measures such as mandatory mask wearing to help limit the spread.
Speaking late on Friday night, Biden said the 74m people who had voted for him had “given us [the Democrats] a mandate for action on Covid, the economy, climate change, systemic racism.”