Flood the zone
If the prior administration’s approach to the coronavirus pandemic consisted of doing as little as possible, letting the president subsume experts, and trying to get by on happy talk, the Biden administration’s plan seems to be to do as much as possible, let the experts talk, and lower expectations for a fast turnaround. That was certainly in evidence on Thursday.
The administration released another flurry of executive orders in addition to a nearly 200-page plan for addressing the pandemic. While President Biden described a variety of steps his administration will take—from reimbursement to states for their use of the National Guard to coordination with pharmacies to mandating worker safety for front-line workers—he warned, “Let me be very clear, things are going to continue to get worse before they get better.”
He also stressed that public health officials will “work free from political interference and that they make decisions strictly based on science and health care alone, science and health alone, not what the political consequences are.”
The shift in governance was evident at the White House news briefing, which lasted for more than an hour and included extended remarks from Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical adviser.
Fauci offered a blizzard of information on everything from the new coronavirus strain originating in Britain (it’s present in 20 states, he said) to whether the virus will work against mutations (yes, so far) to the seven-day average for new cases (plateauing, but unclear whether it’s a blip).
If we can get 75 to 80 percent of the population vaccinated by the end of the summer, Fauci said, then we can at least approach normalcy in the fall. At times, reporters’ eyes seemed to glaze over from Fauci’s level of detail.
The White House press corps, however, seemed obsessed with getting Fauci to compare the Trump and Biden administrations, a sign that the fixation with politics over the conveyance of accurate information during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic has not abated.
Fauci chose his words carefully. He conceded that being free to say whatever the science tells him gave him “a somewhat liberating feeling.” And while he said not everything the Trump administration did was useless, he emphasized that there would be a huge ramping-up of federal involvement. He said a big difference was the president’s directive to be entirely transparent.
The bottom line is that for all the activity and information, the administration ultimately will be judged on what it does. The most the members of Biden team can do at this point is establish trust, give a sense of urgency to covid-19 vaccinations and testing, and apply pressure on Congress to get cracking on funding. So far, they seem to be hitting their marks.