August 22, 2020: As a measure to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the United States, Democratic Party's presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday said he would shut the country down if scientists recommend so. In an interview to ABC, Biden said, "I would shut it down; I would listen to the scientists. I will be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives because we cannot get the country moving until we control the virus."

Biden further went on to slam the Trump administration for its response to the pandemic stating that the country cannot recover economically until the virus is "fixed and dealt with". "That is the fundamental flaw of this administration's thinking to begin with. In order to keep the country running and moving and the economy growing, and people employed, you have to fix the virus, you have to deal with the virus," the ABC reported further quoting the Democrat presidential nominee.

This comes after US President Donald Trump urged the country to reopen businesses and educational institutions despite the surge in COVID-19 cases. In July, Trump said, "We're very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools, to get them open... We're going to be putting a lot of pressure to open the schools in the fall." As per the latest data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the US -- the worst affected country from the pandemic -- has a total of 5,621,324 cases and 175,350 deaths from the coronavirus.