The Note: Biden offers glimpses of new normalcy

The TAKE with Rick Klein

There's wanting the presidency, and then there's acting like you want the job.

President-elect Joe Biden spent the week fielding calls from world leaders, naming key advisers and imploring Americans to wear masks to protect themselves and the country from COVID-19.

President Donald Trump had what was probably the quietest week of his presidency in terms of public appearances. But it was a consequential week nonetheless.

Trump fired his defense secretary and summarily replaced other key officials, with more firings expected. His campaign lawyers sought to upend election results across several states. While the president found time to rage-tweet about Fox News, he did not address the spread of the coronavirus that is threatening the holiday season.

Signs are emerging of Trump defenders losing patience with the tactics and delays. A growing group of Republican lawmakers are insisting that Biden start getting intelligence briefings and are acknowledging publicly that election results are highly unlikely to change.

Biden continues to appear unbothered by the noise. That, in a way, was his appeal from the start -- not to replace Trump with an equal and opposite force, but to provide a different kind of contrast: normalcy, and even sometimes silence.

Election latest: Joe Biden leads the popular vote total with 77,920,048 votes and is projected to have 290 electoral votes. President Donald Trump follows with 72,609,925 popular votes and is projected to have 217 electoral votes.

The RUNDOWN with Alisa Wiersema

With the fight for the presidency largely behind him, Biden and his team are now facing an intangible adversary in tackling the coronavirus pandemic while still dealing with a turbulent transition process. Despite lingering post-election politics, Biden's team is moving forward in addressing the nation's biggest crisis.

Amid rising COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths across the country on Thursday, members of Biden's team met with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), a national nonprofit group that represents public health agencies in the U.S. and its territories.

The meeting -- happening just days after Biden announced the formation of his own coronavirus task force -- was meant to formalize introductions and address best practices of how to engage states and territories in the scope of the pandemic. According to a person familiar with matters related to COVID-19 and the transition process, ASTHO issued the president-elect's team recommendations for handling the pandemic in the first 100 days of the new administration.

The recommendations include establishing a national strategy to control the virus; investing in modernizing the nation's public health data and disease surveillance systems; and eliminating supply chain shortfalls. Meanwhile, according to the CEO of ASTHO, Dr. Michael Fraser, a full national shutdown would not be a likely option in the future. Rather, states would be looking at pursuing "very focused mitigation."

"In the next 70 days ... we're not going to have a vaccine for everybody, we're not going to have a magic cure," he said. "We should be preventing COVID with what we know works now and well into the future."

The TIP with Briana Stewart and Quinn Scanlan

Georgia's top election official has instructed the state's 159 counties to start the process for the statewide hand count audit of every single ballot cast in the presidential race by 9 a.m. Friday and finish it by midnight Wednesday. The process is open to the public, media and political parties to observe and counties were encouraged to livestream the counting process if possible.

Nearly 300 workers will be involved in the audit process in Fulton County, the largest county in the state and where 528,000 votes were cast for the presidential contest. The county will begin preparations Friday and then start the actual counting process Saturday at 7 a.m. They will work every day for 10 hours through Wednesday and they plan to livestream the count.

At 9 a.m., Cobb County, the third largest county in the state, will start its audit effort. The plans were still coming together when reached by ABC News, but a spokesperson said they believe they "have more than enough (workers) to get underway." The workers will plow through the weekend, but the exact hours will be dependent on their progress. The audit will take place at the event center that they used as their "counting headquarters" throughout the election.

DeKalb County, the fourth largest county in the state, will start training and preparations Friday. A spokesperson for the county's Voter Registration and Election Board told ABC News that a team of 300 workers will begin the hand count of over 370,000 ballots Saturday. Workers will work in two shifts to complete the ballot audit by the state deadline. The work will take place in a large venue outside of the county headquarters to accommodate the public, while following social distancing recommendations for staffers and observers. Law enforcement and health officials will be on the premises.

The PLAYLIST

ABC News' "Start Here" podcast. Friday morning's episode features ABC News White House correspondent Karen Travers, who brings us up to speed on the Biden transition as some Republican lawmakers signal willingness to accept the election results. Former Trump administration Homeland Security director and ABC News contributor Tom Bossert explains why a lack of a government response during this current COVID surge could have devastating consequences. And AdWeek social media reporter Scott Nover has the latest on a potential sale of TikTok. http://apple.co/2HPocUL

ABC News' "Powerhouse Politics" podcast. Renowned sports broadcaster Jim Gray discusses his new book, "Talking to GOATs: The Moments You Remember and the Stories You Never Heard" and his interviews with the greatest of all-time athletes including, Muhammad Ali and Tom Brady. He's also interviewed every president since Gerald Ford and will share his reflections on sports and politics. https://bit.ly/3jXffaT

FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast The polls in 2020 weren't great. The presidential polls were off by somewhere in the range of four points, which is notably larger than the recent average error of 2.3 points. In this installment of "Model Talk" on the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, Nate and Galen discuss why a polling error of even four points isn't that unexpected, offer reasons for why the error occurred and discuss the usefulness of polling and modeling going forward. https://apple.co/23r5y7w

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEKEND

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The Note is a daily ABC News feature that highlights the key political moments of the day ahead. Please check back Monday for the latest.