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the best way to keep the pandemic from getting worse was to stop people from breathing, coughing, or sneezing in one another’s faces.

Health officials recommended that people stay home and away from others as much as possible, and to wear face masks when they had to go out. In some states and cities, governors and mayors ordered social distancing and even lockdown measures. Businesses, except for necessary ones like hospitals or trash pickup, were ordered to close.

These actions saved lives, but as a result of the lockdown, the national economy slumped. Many businesses failed. Week after week, millions of unemployed workers applied for state aid. By April the unemployment rate rose to almost 15 percent, the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

People who couldn’t pay their rent were being evicted from their homes, and millions more lived on the edge of becoming homeless. And many, including children, were going hungry. Lines at food banks stretched for miles. In Congress, Democrats and Republicans worked together to respond to the emergency, passing the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, and it was signed into law by President Trump on March 27. The $2.2 trillion was the largest economic stimulus bill ever passed by Congress. The CARES Act provided direct payments by check and unemployment insurance supplements to individual Americans, aid to local and state governments, and loans to businesses.

In spite of efforts to enforce social distancing and lockdowns, the number of deaths in the US from COVID-19 continued to soar, from around one hundred in mid-March to over 103,000 at the end of May. But President Trump still refused to admit how serious the pandemic was.

For some weeks the president held daily press conferences on the coronavirus, but he often contradicted his own medical experts or turned from discussing the pandemic to criticizing his opponents. He resisted mobilizing the nation in order to supply hospitals with masks and other protective equipment, or to make testing for the virus widely available. He insisted that individual states and cities were responsible for combatting the virus. He would not even set an example for the nation by wearing a mask himself.

From March to May, many Democrats complained about “Biden in the Basement,” Joe Biden’s low-key presidential campaign. Because of the lockdown, he didn’t travel. He set up a studio in his basement and gave interviews and “town meetings” from there, but it wasn’t satisfactory campaigning. Biden was at his best with a live audience, mixing with the crowd, looking into people’s eyes, shaking hands, hugging.

Then still another national crisis pushed even the pandemic from the headlines. On May 25, four police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, arrested George Floyd, a Black man, on suspicion of a nonviolent crime. The officers handcuffed Floyd and, as Floyd lay facedown, one white officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes, causing his death. This incident, captured on video, went viral on the Internet. Several similar incidents had been shown on video in recent years, but this was the most shocking, and perhaps the last straw.

A movement with the slogan “Black Lives Matter” had already been active for several years, but now a wave of protest demonstrations swept over the country. The marchers, many white people as well as people of color, chanted George Floyd’s last words, “I can’t breathe.” Joe and Jill Biden visited Floyd’s family in Houston to offer their sympathy.

President Trump’s reaction was to urge governors to “dominate” the protesters. On the night of June 1, Trump had troops forcefully clear demonstrators out of the park across from the White House. He then walked through the park to a church and posed for a photograph, holding a Bible. Seemingly this act was meant as a signal to conservative Christians that he was on the side of God.

Many political commentators continued to wonder why Joe Biden wasn’t campaigning more aggressively. Even with the pandemic’s restrictions on travel and political rallies, they thought he could do more to capture the public’s attention. But others pointed out that President Trump, with all his tweeting and press conferences and Rose Garden announcements, was steadily turning voters against himself. There was a saying in politics: “When your opponent is busy digging his own grave, don’t take the shovel away from him.”

On June 2, Joe Biden traveled to Philadelphia to give a speech to the nation. Standing against a background of American flags, he spoke to the protesters about the kind of president he would be. “I’ll seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued our country, not use them for political gain.” And he asked the nation, “Look at where we are now and think anew: Is this who we are? Is this who we want to be?”

By mid-June, 115,000 Americans had died from the coronavirus. The president’s approval rating sank to 38 percent. Six weeks later, over 150,000 Americans had died, and the virus was spreading uncontrolled. The Black Lives Matter demonstrations continued in cities around the country, including Seattle, Chicago, and New York.

President Trump seemed desperate to reopen and revive the national economy, which had been his biggest political advantage. Also, he was distressed at not being able to speak in front of applauding crowds. In June, against public health advice, he held his first rally in months at an indoor arena in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Not as many people as expected showed up, perhaps put off by the health risk.

In the history of the United States, there had never been a presidential election year like this, without numerous rallies and noisy, crowded conventions. The Democratic National Party announced in July that their convention would take place online. The Republican National Party moved its convention plans from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Jacksonville, Florida, trying to avoid coronavirus restrictions. But by late July they had shrunk their convention plans to a one-day business meeting only, back in Charlotte. However, in a few weeks these plans would change again, dramatically.

President Trump could no longer