“More people may die” if Trump continues to block transition 

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice president-elect Kamala Harris are delivering remarks on the economy from Wilmington, Delaware. 

“We all know that this pandemic and this recession have hit communities of color particularly hard. Black Americans and Latinos are three times as likely to contract Covid as others and more likely to die. Native Americans are more than four times as likely to be hospitalized as others. And last month the unemployment rate for Black Americans was almost twice the rate of others,” Harris said.

“And we have also had a conversation about the impact this pandemic has had on our economy as a whole, from the Fortune 500 to the small small businesses that so many communities rely on,” Harris added.

Earlier today, Biden and Harris received an economic briefing from a group of CEOs, including from Microsoft, Target and Gap, and union leaders like Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO.

“And as I said the night we won this election, now is when the real work begins, the necessary work, the good work of getting this virus under control, saving lives and beating this pandemic and opening our economy responsibly while rebuilding it so that it works for working people,” she said. 

Harris’ comments come as the country battles a surge in coronavirus cases. The United States surpassed 11 million coronavirus cases on Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The latest milestone came just six days after the US recorded 10 million cases, per Johns Hopkins data. It was the fastest the US has added one million new cases since the pandemic began.

On Friday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that hospitalization rates are significantly higher among the Black, Latino and Alaska Native or Native American populations in the US compared to Asian and White people. Hospitalization rates are about four times higher among Blacks and Latinos than Whites.

Watch Vice president-elect Kamala Harris here: