A new day and chapter are dawning as the world welcomes incoming US President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, who is the first-ever black, South-Asian, and female Vice-President, to the White House.
The historic news today is dominated by the inauguration of the United States of America’s 46th President, Joe Biden in Washington with the celebratory ceremony featuring a host of A-list celebrities such as Lady Gaga, Jennifer (J-Lo) Lopez and Garth Brooks broadcast live to the world.
The ceremony also included a thought-provoking poem calling for national unity written and read by 22-year old US poet laureate Amanda Gorman.
Ms Gorman’s six-minute reading seemed to perfectly capture the sentiment of opportunity this new chapter of leadership could now represent for healing the country and was lauded as such.
With the U.S’s biggest stars and celebrities falling over each other to support the inauguration celebrations, the ceremony was in stark contrast to Donald Trump’s inauguration four years earlier when he struggled to attract any big-name musicians to perform.
In the same week as the U.S COVID-19 death toll devastatingly ticked over 400,000 people, US President Joe Biden and his team have wasted no time in getting to work straight away on undoing Trump’s maddening policies, starting with pushing the big red ‘stop’ button on the COVID-19 travel ban rules that were set to begin on January 26th.
Just hours before he had to pack his bags and leave the White House, Trump had made the shocking statement that would lift the US COVID-19 travel ban, allowing non-US citizens to arrive from Brazil, the UK, and most of Europe – despite the new virus strains and current health crisis from January 26th.
Thankfully, this is now most definitely a no from the new head of state.
President Joe Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, stated that “this is not the time to be lifting restrictions on international travel”.
The current COVID-19 travel measures block most non-American citizens who have been in Brazil, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and 26 other countries of Europe’s Schengen area in the past 14 days.
Moving forward
Now President Joe Biden has been sworn in as 46th President of the United States, he has the legal authority to undo Donald Trump’s signature policies.
In his first address in office, the new president expressed that “without unity, there is no peace”.
He said, “To overcome these challenges, to restore the soul and secure the future of America, requires so much more than words. It requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy: unity”.