US President-elect Joe Biden has called for an end to the “grim season of division”, as the country faces a long, hard winter with Covid-19.
In a speech for the Thanksgiving holiday, he said Americans were at war with coronavirus, not each other.
He urged people to forgo high-risk holiday traditions, as cases of the virus continue to surge in the US.
Meanwhile President Donald Trump urged supporters to work to overturn the results of the 3 November election.
In an address to an event organised by Republican state legislators in Pennsylvania, Mr Trump repeated unsubstantiated claims about widespread electoral fraud.
Mr Biden won the election with a comfortable victory in electoral college votes, and the transition to his presidency is already well under way. Mr Trump’s efforts to challenge the results in key states in courts have so far failed.
‘We can beat this virus’
Mr Biden told the nation: “I believe you always deserve to hear the truth from your president. We have to slow the growth of this virus. We owe it to the doctors and the nurses and the frontline workers … We owe it to our fellow citizens.”
He said Covid-19 had “brought us pain and loss and frustration” and cost many lives.
“It’s divided us, angered us, set us against one another. I know the country’s grown weary of the fight, but we need to remember – we’re at war with the virus, not one another.”
The president-elect urged Americans to modify their Thanksgiving celebrations, and said his family would be observing the holiday in small groups.
He vowed that in due course, the pandemic would be beaten.
“I know that we can and will beat this virus,” he said. “Life is going to return to normal, I promise you.”
The Thanksgiving holiday comes as new cases of the virus continue to increase in the US.
On Tuesday the number of coronavirus deaths surpassed 2,000 for the first time since May. More than 260,000 Americans have now died with the virus, the largest number of any country in the world, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.
BBC