San Diego Union-Tribune

U.S. NEEDS A HERO

- Is on Twitter, @lynnschmid­trn.

The Hydra is an ancient Greek mythical beast, mentioned in the tales of Hercules, that was said to have the body of a dragon with many heads, two arms and legs with knifelike claws, sharp spikes and a long serpent tail. If the heads were cut off, two heads would grow back in its place.

The coronaviru­s pandemic reminds me of Hydra’s body, with its spikes and poisonous breath. Its multiple heads are the outgrowths of chaos seemingly attacking all areas of domestic life.

President Joe Biden has yet to show substantia­l progress in the Herculean task of fighting the heads of this beast. In part because of this, he will be celebratin­g his first year in office with dismal approval ratings, which have dropped to 33 percent, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll, the lowest mark during his first year. Quinnipiac polling analyst Tim Malloy blames the coronaviru­s as the main factor behind Biden’s slide. “It’s a looming cloud over the country right now and over the presidency.”

Many of the issues that Americans may feel are out of control stem from the effects of the pandemic. Lack of testing, disruption­s to our children’s education, empty grocery shelves, inflation, increase in violent crime and vaccine misinforma­tion are all heads of the monster.

Right as the winter holidays were approachin­g, the Omicron variant swept through America. In many states, the Delta variant was still wreaking havoc. At-home coronaviru­s tests flew off the shelves as people prepared to travel or to see loved ones. Tests now are nearly impossible to find, and lines are long at coronaviru­s testing sites. In a December interview with ABC News, Biden said he wished he had ordered 500 million free at-home tests two months prior, which would have been October. He didn’t, so here we are.

School districts across the country have been struggling to keep up with the science behind the Omicron variant. Children, parents, teachers, staff and school administra­tors have been dealing with changing public health guidelines and staffing shortages. Back and forth between onsite and remote learning. Add the teachers unions in the mix, and there is quite a bit of pandemoniu­m. Teachers, staff and students alike are home sick.

Those same school districts are fighting with politician­s over mask mandates. These disruption­s to education cannot be good for children’s social, emotional or educationa­l wellbeing.

Grocery store shelves are frequently empty. Labor shortages due to the pandemic and winter storms have piled on to the supply chain struggles.

The prices of goods and services in the U.S. continue to rise at rates unseen in decades, jumping to 7 percent in December. Inflation is rising across the globe, not only in the United States. Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, attributes the problem to coronaviru­s disruption. “That’s the key reason why we’re seeing inflationa­ry pressures around the world,” he told Vox.

The U.S. experience­d a dramatic rise in violent crime during the height of the pandemic in 2020. According to the FBI’s “Uniform Crime Report” for 2020, there was a nearly 30 percent increase in homicides, the largest single-year jump since the bureau began recording crime statistics six decades ago. The surge in killings drove an overall 5 percent increase in violent crime in 2020. It is

Joe Biden will be celebratin­g his first year in office with dismal approval ratings.

easy to see and feel the increase in crime with images strewn across social media of empty boxes and packages strewn along train tracks after thieves had broken into cargo trains in Los Angeles. Mobs are attacking department stores in some cities and running off with items.

One particular­ly unruly head of the beast has been vaccine disinforma­tion. In December 2020, five leading Democrats from the House and Senate urged Biden to name an expert at countering misinforma­tion to his coronaviru­s task force, citing statistics showing that 4 in 10 Americans opposed being vaccinated against the coronaviru­s. “The COVID-19 infodemic is about to dangerousl­y intersect with a misinforma­tionladen anti-vaccine movement that has led to tragic consequenc­es in our country,” they wrote.

The Biden administra­tion did not heed their advice and has, in my opinion, done little to combat vaccine misinforma­tion.

Biden did make a swipe at one head of the beast with his vaccine mandate for large companies. Last week, the Supreme Court blocked his rule requiring workers at companies with at least 100 employees to be vaccinated or masked and tested weekly.

The chaos of this monster is frightenin­g Americans. What we need now is a hero. Will the president step up and strike at the heads of this beast? Of course, that remains to be seen, but until he does, expect his approval ratings to remain low.

Schmidt

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