Trump and Biden have contradictory views on the president's handling of the pandemic with Trump asserting he's done better than any other world leader and Biden claiming he's done "virtually nothing."

Trump's insisted again that the pandemic is "going away," touting his administration's efforts on therapeutics and vaccines.

"I don't think we're gonna have a dark winter at all," Trump said. "I say we're learning to live with it. We have no choice. We can't lock ourselves up in a basement like Joe does," drawing a laugh from Biden.

Biden emphasized the lives already lost, making a direct appeal to those at home.

"Number one, he says that we're, you know, we're learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it," Biden said. "You folks home who have an empty chair at the kitchen table this morning, that man or wife going to bed tonight and reaching over to try to touch their -- out of habit where their wife or husband was is gone. Learning to live with it? Come on."

When Trump threatened that Biden would shutdown the country if elected, causing massive economic depression, Biden said, "I'm going to shut down the virus, not the country."

In response to a question on how he would lead the country out of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Biden cited the more than 220,000 Americans who had died from the virus.

"Anyone who's responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America," he said.

Biden went on to say that Trump doesn't have a plan for dealing with the virus. He called for mask wearing, and a national policy on mask wearing, more testing and a national policy on reopening schools and businesses.

"I will take care of this. I will end this," Biden said to close out his first answer. "I will make sure we have a plan."

Trump tackled the first question on the coronavirus pandemic but stuck to his stance the pandemic is "rounding the corner" and "going away."

"Since the two of you last shared a stage, 16,000 Americans have died from COVID," Welker said. "So please be specific, how would you lead the country during this next stage of the coronavirus crisis?"

"As you know, 2.2 million people modelled out were expected to die," Trump began. "We closed up the greatest economy in the world in order to fight this horrible disease that came from China."

He went on to draw from his personal experience contracting COVID-19, downplaying its side effects and touting the country's therapeutics.

"I can tell you from personal experience that I was in the hospital. I had it. And I got better," Trump said. "And I will tell you that I had something that they gave me, a therapeutic, I guess they would call it, some people could say it was a cure. But I was in for a short period of time and I got better very fast or I wouldn't be here tonight. And now they say I'm immune. Whether it's four months or a lifetime, nobody has been able to say that, but I'm immune."

"It will go away and as I say, we're rounding the turn. We're rounding the corner. It's going away," he added.

The final presidential debate has kicked off from Belmont University in Nashville marking Trump and Biden's final chance to pitch themselves to voters in primetime ahead of Nov. 3. The audience of roughly 200 people in stadium-style seating applauded as the candidates took the stage.

There was a last-minute change to remove the plexiglass partitions placed between the two candidates after Dr. Anthony Fauci weighed in and each tested negative for COVID-19. They remain socially distanced with at least 12 feet of space between them.

The first question from moderator Kristen Welker, NBC News White House correspondent, was on COVID-19 and went to the president.

Biden's mic will be muted while the president answers, and Trump's mic will follow suit when it's the former vice president's turn to weigh in.

"On behalf of the voters, I'm going to ask you to please speak one at a time. The goal is for you to hear each other and for the American people to hear every word of what you both have to say," Welker said.

To open the section on race in America, Welker described "the talk" to the candidates -- when parents of color, regardless of class or income, prepare their children for the chance that they could be targeted by police for no reason other than the color of their skin -- giving the first question to Biden.

"I would like you to speak directly to these families," Welker said. "Do you understand why these parents fear for the children?"

"Yes, I do," said Biden. "The fact of the matter is there is institutional racism in America. We have always said, we've never lived up to it, that we hold these truths to be self-evident, all men and women are created equal. Guess what? We have never, ever lived up to it."

"We have to provide better economic opportunity, better education, better health care, better access to schooling, better access to borrow money to start businesses," Biden continued. "And I've laid out a clear plan as to how to do those things just to give people a shot. It's about accumulating the ability to have wealth as well as it is to be free from violence."

When the same question was posed to Trump, the president raised Biden's controversial 1994 crime bill and again said no one has done more for the Black community than Trump -- other than President Abraham Lincoln.

"Yes, I do," Trump said, before launching an attack on Biden. "And again, he's been in government 47 years. He never did a thing, except in 1994, when he did such harm to the Black community."

"Nobody has done more for the Black community than Donald Trump. And if you look, with the exception of Abraham Lincoln, possible exception, but the exception of Abraham Lincoln, nobody has done what I've done," he added.

Trump went on to rail against Biden for not making the changes he's pushing when he was in office and said he ran for office as a direct response to Obama and Biden.

"Joe, I ran because of you. I ran because of Barack Obama. Because you did a poor job. If I thought you did a good job, I would have never run," Trump said. "I ran because of you."