Prez’s lost war on COVID
CANDIDATE Joe Biden’s fib was that he could “beat” a global virus. President Biden’s mistake was to swallow his own whopper. Welcome to the Biden virus quagmire.
The White House on Thursday released its latest list of COVID rules in anticipation of a rise in winter cases and the arrival of the Omicron variant. The administration imposed new testing rules for international travelers, extended its transportation mask mandate, and announced it would launch hundreds of vaccination clinics and a campaign for boosters, distribute 25 million free tests, and allow reimbursement for home testing.
Feel better now? Confident that this time we’ll whup the virus? Of course not. If there’s one thing a weary world has realized, it’s that there’s no beating a highly transmissible respiratory disease. Vaccines prevent serious disease, but they don’t stop transmission. No amount of masking, social distancing or locking down has stopped the surges of the past six months, including in states like Michigan and New Mexico, which boasted about their restrictions. The virus doesn’t follow executive orders.
But the Biden administration hasn’t worked this out. The White House has instead created for itself a toxic COVID loop. With each new surge it rolls out more restrictions and actions. With each failure of these measures to beat the virus, the public loses faith. Cue yet more administration rules that are designed to restore confidence, even as they are destined both to fail and to annoy the country.
In January it was Biden’s 198page plan to get the virus under control in “months.” In March it was a $2 trillion COVID bill, with tens of billions for vaccines, contact tracing, health departments, hot spots and “mitigation.” Then the summer surge, which provoked the administration first to implement new testing requirements for federal employees and contractors, and then to produce a “six part” plan, including vaccine mandates. Now a winter surge has brought even more mandates and other measures.
The degree to which this strategy is failing is evident in the polls. Americans’ approval of Biden’s handling of the virus has fallen more than 20 points since he was sworn into office, according to the RealClearPolitics average. The past two months have churned out his worst polling on the issue since taking office.
Worse for the administration, the public is showing signs that its lack of confidence is morphing into growing dislike of the president’s measures. While a majority of Americans still favor vaccine mandates, that number is slipping. COVID rules, including school masking, infuriated suburban parents and contributed to the GOP’s Virginia victories. There’s annoyance over constantly changing directives, supposedly based on science — who should wear a mask where and when, who should get a booster when, and whether or how much the vaccine is effective.
Americans resent the stench of politics in too many decisions — whether it be the teachers unions’ role in school-reopening guidance or Biden’s embrace of travel bans that he called “xenophobic” when Donald Trump was president.
Mostly, there’s growing frustration with forever-moving goal posts. Americans were told earlier this year that a vaccine jab was their ticket back to normality. In early June, Biden promised “a summer of joy and freedom.” Summer and fall brought a whole new raft of restrictions, which were applied even to those who were vaccinated. The White House’s statement this week accompanying its new rules warns again about the possibility of school closures and business lockdowns.
Biden’s self-defeating strategy perhaps shouldn’t be surprising, if recent statements by White House advisers reflect the quality of advice the president is getting. Chief of staff Ron Klain this week tweeted that “Stronger COVID measures produce STRONGER ECONOMIC outcomes” — a claim that is demonstrably untrue, based on the far better economic progress of states like Florida that ended lockdowns quickly.
Deputy press secretary Andrew Bates accused House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of “actively undermining the fight against Covid, which is driving inflation.” Inflation is certainly spreading, but not because people are coughing it on each other.
It’s one thing to promise the impossible to get elected — that’s spin. Continuing to promise the impossible while in office is political malpractice.
The White House had an opportunity this spring to reset its endgame. It could have taken credit for a quick vaccine rollout and for helping the country to make the transition to “living with” the virus. It could have moved off the daily obsession with case counts and positivity rates, which go up when asymptomatic people get tested. It could have used subsequent surges to redouble its vaccination message (since most new hospitalizations are still among the unvaccinated).
The Biden administration at some point will realize that its political fortunes are tied to a virus that isn’t going anywhere. The longer it takes to make a clean break, the likelier it is to succumb to COVID.