Democratic presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden opened the final debate with President Trump by predicting a “dark winter” and a bleak future with another 200,000 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic.
“He doesn’t have a plan,” Mr. Biden said at the debate in Nashville, Tennessee. “There’s not a single scientist in the world who thinks it will be over soon.”
Mr. Trump responded with a more upbeat view of the scientific response to COVID-19, including improved life-saving treatments and a vaccine that is in the pipeline.
“We have to recover. We can’t close up our nation. We have to open our schools, and we can’t close up our nation, or you’re not going to have a nation,” Mr. Trump said.
More than 220,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, and the rate of infections is rising again. Mr. Biden has made the pandemic his chief argument for replacing Mr. Trump in the Nov. 3 election.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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