HYPO-ACTIVE JOE
Plans urgent plea to Americans who still have not gotten vax
President Biden plans this week to roll out a new “six-pronged” strategy involving the public and private sectors to battle the COVID-19 pandemic as the surge of the virulent delta variant threatens to derail the fragile recovery.
With caseloads and deaths increasing and vaccination rates still sluggish, Biden is set to deliver remarks to the American people on Thursday in hopes of getting a lid on the resurgent pandemic and reigniting the once-roaring economic recovery.
“The president will speak to the American people about his robust plan to stop the spread of the delta variant and boost vaccinations,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. “As [Biden] has said since day one, his administration will pull every lever to get the pandemic under control.”
The scope of the problem is not tough to spot: caseloads, hospitalizations and deaths are nearly as high as they’ve been since the pandemic first hit in March 2020.
And despite widespread “COVID fatigue,” the economy remains a prisoner of the pandemic, with a full recovery dependent on getting Americans safely back to school and work and getting them to keep opening their pocketbooks to spend.
For Biden, nothing less than the success of his still-young presidency rides on getting the answers right as the midterm elections loom just 14 months away.
He also wants to urge Americans to get more of their teenage children vaccinated as soon as possible and to encourage parents of kids younger than 12 to get them inoculated once health officials give the green light for them to get shots in the coming weeks.
Biden will also likely address the increasingly fraught issue of mask requirements as students return to school.
Public health experts say school children, teachers and staff should all be ordered to wear masks to help prevent the additional spread of the virus, especially in areas where the delta virus is endemic.
“I will note that we’ve seen that there is a range of ways that we have increased vaccinations across the country, or vaccinations have increased. One of them is private-sector companies mandating in different capacities that their employees get vaccinated. Or certain school districts mandate,” Psaki said Tuesday.
The back-toschool debate mirrors some of the issues corporate America is facing as workers start to trickle back into physical offices after 18 months of mostly working from home.
All the steps are aimed at getting more shots in arms so fewer Americans are getting sick and dying from COVID — but also so they get back to work and start spending again
A disappointing August jobs report underlined the end of summer doom and gloom and some analysts have downgraded onceeye-popping growth forecasts.
The speech comes as Biden has seen a dip in his approval rating with more Americans disapproving of his performance than backing it for the first time since he took office in January.