‘NOT A PANDEMIC’
Still, Joe says kids may need masks in schools
President Biden on Wednesday declared, “This is not a pandemic” as he spoke about reopening the United States after COVID-19 — but he also said that children under age 12 may have to wear masks in classrooms this fall unless they become eligible for vaccines soon.
Biden used a CNN town hall in Cincinnati to call on unvaccinated Americans to get their shots to avoid a resurgence of the bug as the more contagious Delta version spreads in areas with lower vaccination rates.
Members of Biden’s audience sat close together without masks. But a member of the traveling White House press pool tweeted a photo of the venue from the rear, revealing that about half of the seats were empty.
“There’s legitimate questions people can ask, that they worry about getting vaccinated. But the questions should be asked, answered, and people should get vaccinated. But this is not a pandemic. We’ve made sure that since I got in office we’ve, we’ve inoculated over 160 million people,” Biden said.
But he added there could be a “new pandemic” if the Delta variant is allowed to keep spreading.
“What I say to people who are worried about a new pandemic is, get vaccinated. If you’re vaccinated, even if you do catch the virus, quote, unquote . . . If you do, you’re not likely to get sick, you’re probably gonna be symptomless, you’re not going to be in a position where your life is in danger,” he said.
According to CDC data, 68.4 percent of US adults have had at least one vaccine shot. But there are uneven rates of vaccination, causing recent surges in new infections in Arkansas, Florida, Lousiana, Missouri and Nevada.
Once vaccines are approved for kids under 12, communities are going to have to ensure that parents are being honest, Biden added.
“It’s going to get a little bit tight in terms of, well, are Mom or Dad being honest that, you know, Johnny did or did not get vaccinated?” the president said.
He pivoted to a range of subjects, including what companies will have to do to lure unemployed workers back to their jobs.
Biden told a restaurant owner that it would likely be a struggle to hire new staffers for the next few months before expanded federal unemployment benefits run out — unless the restaurateur paid them more.
The owner, who identified himself as John Lanni, a Republican, asked Biden: “We employ hundreds of hardworking team members throughout the state of Ohio and across the country, and we’re looking to hire more every day. How do you and the Biden administration plan to incentivize those that haven’t returned to work yet? Hiring is our top priority right now.”
“Two things,” Biden responded. “One, if you noticed, we kept you open. We spent billions of dollars to make sure restaurants can stay open, and a lot of people who now — who work as waiters and waitresses decided that they don’t want to do that anymore because there’s other opportunities at higher wages, because there’s a lot of openings now, jobs.
“People are beginning to move . . . There’s not much distinction between not going back to work in a restaurant and not going back to work at a factory. So people are looking to change opportunities,
change what they’re doing.”