President-elect Joe Biden has nominated Vivek Murthy to serve as U.S. surgeon general to help lead the response to the coronavirus crisis. Murthy previously served as surgeon general for over two years under President Obama. On Thursday, Biden told CNN he will order new public health measures as soon as he takes office. 

President-elect Joe Biden: “My first day I’m inaugurated to say I’m going to ask the public for 100 days to mask. Just 100 days to mask, not forever. One hundred days. And I think we’ll see a significant reduction if we occur that — if that occurs, with vaccinations and masking, to drive down the numbers considerably.”

Researchers at the University of Washington project the U.S. coronavirus death toll could reach nearly 540,000 by April 1. The same researchers recently projected that if 95% of Americans wore masks consistently, over 68,000 lives would be saved by March 1.