The New York Times informs its readers that, “Biden ‘Over-Promised and Under-Delivered’ on Climate.” Yes, he tends to do that about a lot of things. Even by the standard of big-talking and naïve elected officials, Biden tends to promise wildly ambitious, difficult-to-achieve goals — “I’m going to shut down the virus” “I promise you, if I’m elected president, we’re going to cure cancer” — and then he usually either forgets about them or blames someone else for why he couldn’t keep his promise.
Yesterday, President Biden said before a meeting on the pandemic that, “On testing, I know this remains frustrating — believe me, it’s frustrating to me — but we’re making improvements.”
He’s frustrated, too, Americans. If only the president of the United States could have done something about the lack of tests. Of course, he did promise we wouldn’t be in this situation.
Back in September, Biden boasted that, “I’m taking steps tonight to make testing more available, more affordable, and more convenient. I’ll use the Defense Production Act to increase production of rapid tests, including those that you can use at home . . . we’re committing $2 billion to purchase nearly 300 million rapid tests for distribution to community health centers, food banks, schools, so that every American, no matter their income, can access free and convenient tests.”
And then in December, Biden pledged that, “This winter, we are going to make free at-home tests more available to Americans than ever before. To better detect and control the Delta variant, I made testing more available, affordable, and convenient. . . . We’re going to make available free tests at thousands of convenient locations — locations for folks to pick them up and take a test kit home. . . . The bottom line: This winter, you’ll be able to test for free in the comfort of your home and have some peace of mind.”
And now, after the Christmas holiday and all of its gatherings and travel, with hundreds of thousands of Americans testing positive every day, and with lots of Americans wondering if they have a routine cold, or the flu, or Covid-19 . . . it’s really, really difficult to find a test:
Consequently, every variety of at-home COVID-19 test on CVS Pharmacy’s website is currently sold out. Abbott’s BinaxNow kit, Quidel’s QuickVue at-home test kit, Orasure’s Inteliswab rapid test kit and FlowFlex’s version are all sold out on Walgreens’ website, too.
Product availability tracker Nowinstock.net, which does the legwork for consumers, also indicates that nearly every variety of at-home COVID-19 test is sold out across the expansive online retail landscape.
Remember in March, when David Graham of The Atlantic declared that, “There’s another, contradictory lesson of the old Senate, and it’s the one that Biden has followed thus far as president: You do whatever it takes to get things done.”
Does Biden seem like a guy who really knows how to get things done?