Joe Biden has spent these early days as President-elect pleading with Americans to pay attention to the relentless surge of Covid-19 -- with deaths averaging more than 1,000 a day in the past week -- as President Donald Trump continues to ignore the deepening crisis and touts the promises of yet-to-be-approved vaccines as his panacea.

The continuing power struggle between two men with diametrically different philosophies on how the US should handle the virus has left the nation rudderless at this critical moment -- forced by Trump into a governing crisis as he refuses to let the transition to the Biden presidency proceed and pass on knowledge that could be critical to slowing the spread of the virus next year.