Thinking about Rich’s question of what, if anything, Joe Biden could do to turn things around…
Biden’s problems start with the fact that his always-unrealistic promise to “shut down the virus, not the country or economy,” is now broken on such a spectacular scale. Biden had pretty good approval ratings for how he was handling the pandemic all the way into September, and even into November, his approval ratings were a little higher than his disapproval ratings on this particular issue. But when new cases started approaching 100,000 per day, and no one could find any Covid-19 tests on store shelves, the bottom fell out.
His job rating on handling COVID is down to the lowest point in his presidency, and when asked specifically why they don’t think he’s handling it well, two-thirds cite information about the outbreak being confusing. Few attribute it to a lack of vaccinations.
The allegedly kindly Biden has rarely hesitated to demagogue and scapegoat others for problems he failed to solve, and for much of 2020, Biden relished blaming the unvaccinated as the reason the pandemic hasn’t ended. But the unvaccinated are now down to about 13 percent of American adults. The unvaccinated aren’t the reason why Omicron is so contagious, and the unvaccinated aren’t the reason why so many Americans can’t find tests. Biden’s traditional rhetoric that “this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated” isn’t quite as accurate as it used to be. Yes, the unvaccinated are much more likely to get seriously sick, require vaccination, and die. But lots and lots of fully-vaccinated and boosted Americans caught Omicron and had to stay home sick, too.
Since Omicron arose, the administration’s messaging has been atrocious. Biden keeps saying, “How about making sure that you’re vaccinated, so you do not spread the disease to anyone else,” even though the vaccinated can indeed spread the virus to others.
Biden says he wishes he had ordered 500 million tests two months ago, forgetting that he pledged to deliver 300 million tests three months earlier.
Vice President Kamala Harris says no one warned the administration about the potential danger of variants.
It is as if Biden and Harris believed that once they were in office, Covid-19 would fade away because of the sheer force of their personality – and that the Covid-19 pandemic was primarily a problem of President Trump not listening to the experts and following “THE SCIENCE!”
It turns out that Covid-19 is not just a problem caused by having a Republican president. It is, right now, an extremely contagious virus that is going to result in mild symptoms for most people but that has the potential to cause serious life-threatening problems for the elderly, immunocompromised, etc. Maybe the Omicron wave will get us to something akin to herd immunity. But when a virus becomes endemic, it means it never really goes away, like the common cold. In other words, Biden will never “shut down the virus.”
What can Biden do? He can start by leveling with people. One of the reasons people are in such a sour mood right now is that the vaccines were oversold – specifically, they clearly don’t stop 95 percent of infections. The good news is that the vaccines reduce serious illness, hospitalization and death — and that’s really important! But the vaccines don’t prevent you from catching the virus, and they can’t guarantee you will not get sick, particularly against Omicron.
The approval processes at the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have mostly been a black box – unless you’re looking for the arguments, you won’t find them. In September, Biden said all Americans would need boosters, but until November 18, the FDA recommended that only the elderly or those with comorbidities should get boosters; the next day, they said all adults should get one. Biden should acknowledge that not all scientists, doctors, and medical experts agree, and stop arguing as if “THE SCIENCE!” speaks with one clear voice. A little humility, and respectful acknowledgment of dissenting voices, would go a long way.
Biden needs to avoid the Lucy-and-the-football dynamic that has characterized policies during this pandemic – the sense that you, the citizen, have never done enough to prevent the spread. Israel has conducted a study on a fourth shot, and the results seem pretty underwhelming. Three shots is probably going to be fine for most Americans; there isn’t much point in starting up a new argument in a few months about whether Americans with “only” three shots should count as “fully vaccinated.”
Biden could acknowledge that wearing masks has not proven effective against the highly contagious omicron variant so far. Biden’s mask rhetoric hasn’t changed — “please wear a mask. If you’re in a — you know, I think it is part of your patriotic duty” — even as the cities with the strictest masking rules see the same Omicron spike as everywhere else.
There are other dumb rules that Biden never seems to get around to criticizing. Sonoma County wants to restrict the spectators to youth sports to 20 percent of capacity – while in nearby San Francisco, the Golden State Warriors play to sellout crowds. The editorial board of the Salt Lake City Tribune wants to “deploy the National Guard to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere.” Minneapolis enacted, and then rescinded, a proposal requiring kids 2 to 4 to show proof of a negative test to enter a restaurant.
These are dumb ideas; imagine what a refreshing change it would be if a Democratic president took some time to rebuke those proposals.
Instead, ten months after passing a $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill, Biden is expected to ask for a “substantial” amount in another massive batch of Covid relief. Biden is an old senator; he’s convinced a problem must get solved if you throw enough money at it.
In other words, Biden’s approach to the pandemic hasn’t changed much since he took office, even though the Omicron wave is significantly different. When you continue the same approach, you should expect the same results.