President Biden remained masked while meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the White House Monday. At the end of January, the Associated Press ran an article about “the extraordinary efforts on the part of the White House to keep the president from getting COVID-19, even though he’s gotten both of his regular vaccinations and his booster” including not putting out glasses of water at White House events so people remains masked, and keeping the president more than ten feet from other people.
Can we pause to note the irony of the observation in the AP report, “Biden aides have fretted that the people who are most protected against COVID-19 remain the most cautious, a dynamic they view as a drag on the nation’s economic and psychological recovery”? Biden would fit the definition of “the people who are most protected against COVID-19” remaining the most cautious.
If the fully-vaccinated and boosted 79-year-old Joe Biden is still so frail that his team is terrified of him getting Covid-19, then it is fair to ask if he’s healthy enough to serve as president. In late November, Biden’s doctors assured us he was “healthy, vigorous,” and “remains fit for duty, and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations.” The man has access to the best doctors and health care equipment on the planet. They could pump him full of monoclonal antibodies all day long if they needed.
If Biden’s most recent health assessment is accurate, neither Biden nor his staff should be living in terror of him catching Covid-19. If Biden caught Covid-19, he would most likely experience routine cold or flu symptoms, he would be extremely unlikely to end up hospitalized, and he would recover — particularly with access to all of the White House medical staff, equipment, medicines, treatments, etc. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but plenty of presidents have endured minor ailments and illnesses.
And yet, as Politico’s Alex Thompson and Max Tani summarized, “they’re terrified of Joe Biden getting Covid.”
Is this a sign that Biden isn’t really healthy, vigorous, and fit for duty?
Or is it a sign that the White House still operates in a mindset that treats Omicron as much more dangerous than it is?
Or a sign that the White House sees Biden not getting Omicron yet as some sort of political “win” that they will lose if Biden ever gets infected? In a world where, at minimum, 78 million Americans have caught Covid-19, why is a person not getting it still seen as some sort of “win”?