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.

TRUMP'S CLAIM: "Nobody knew where it was coming from, what it was. We've learned a lot. But Anthony said don't wear masks. Now he wants to wear masks."

FACT CHECK: Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the top infectious disease experts in the country, and other public health experts initially told Americans not to wear surgical or N95 masks in the early days of what has become the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, as well as Fauci and other top experts, initially discouraged wearing masks because of concerns that masks and other personal protective equipment were in short supply for health care workers who needed them. Public health officials were also concerned wearing masks could have unintended consequences if people touched their face more often to adjust them or fail to keep social distancing.

"There was this feeling that there would be a shortage just for those who really need them very early on," Fauci said in a recent interview. "That was the big deal. We didn't have enough PPE including masks. Then it became clear that cloth masks worked reasonably well. And therefore there was no more shortage. Then the different analyses, meta analyses and others came in that in fact, it does work."

In early April, the CDC changed its recommendation about face coverings for the general public, based on evidence that a significant number of people who were asymptomatic or not yet feeling sick were transmitting the virus.

Duke University researchers have also concluded that "if 95 percent of people wear cloth masks when within 6 feet of other people in public, it will reduce COVID-19 transmission by at least 30 percent."

Trump also said he thought Fauci was a Democrat, but Fauci is not registered as a member of any political party, according to D.C. voting records.

-ABC News' Stephanie Ebbs and Arielle Mitropoulos