However, an in-person audience limited in size by pandemic social distancing requirements was a reminder that even massive vaccination success in 100 days has only slowed the pandemic.
There is a good deal of premature enthusiasm in America because some of the pandemic responses are being lifted, despite concerns about viral variants and super-spreader events.
President Trump has created dubious history with less than a week to go before he is replaced by Joe Biden. He has a been impeached with a losing score of 232 to 197 in the House of Representatives.
The pardoning spree by the US president has gone to absurd lengths and there is speculation he may even pardon himself, thereby kicking in a constitutional crisis. This power now needs wholesale legal engineering.
Joe Biden obviously meant it when he made a commitment to racial, gender and ideological diversity in top advisory positions. While many of the named choices have experience working with him when he was vice president, Indian Americans are the flavour of the transition review teams.
In a speech broadcast late in the evening on news channels and television networks, Biden, accompanied by his vice presidential running mate, Kamala Harris, communicated the need to be patient and let the election system count every vote and conclude the election, which he believes he will win.