Coronavirus: Biden inauguration team urges Americans to stay home for ceremony

The committee planning President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s inauguration next month is urging Americans to stay home for the ceremony and instead participate in virtual celebrations as the coronavirus pandemic continues to sicken people nationwide.

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“We’re inviting all Americans to be a part of this inauguration by watching from home, rather than traveling to Washington, DC, in accordance with public health guidelines,” officials with the Biden Inaugural Committee said in a statement posted Tuesday on social media.

“While the inauguration will look different, we will continue to honor the inaugural traditions Americans have always known: an official outdoor swearing-in ceremony, community service events, a reimagined parade, and virtual celebrations that bring the country together.”

Biden and Harris will take their oaths of office Jan. 20 on the west side of the U.S. Capitol, where Biden also plans to give his inauguration address, according to The Washington Post.

“The ceremony’s footprint will be extremely limited, and the parade that follows will be reimagined,” committee officials said in a statement obtained by Politico.

Officials have named Dr. David Kessler, the former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as chief medical advisor for the inauguration, NPR reported.

Maju Varghese, the executive director of the inauguration, told the Post that inauguration officials are “leaning into doing things very different this time” because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“This is a once-in-a-generation moment that we’re in,” Varghese said.

“What we’re trying to do here is be honest and transparent. … The idea of some of the models you’ve seen through the pandemic — from screens at NBA games or different camera angles to watch events at home — are things our creative team and digital team is thinking about. We’re asking them to do something different this year, and we’re trying to give them something different as well.”

The U.S. continues to lead the world with the most COVID-19 cases. Since doctors identified the first American coronavirus case in January, more than 16.5 million people have fallen ill and over 301,000 people have died, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.

More than 73.1 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported worldwide, causing over 1.6 million deaths.

Cox Media Group