OPINION:
We’re now almost one full year into the Biden administration, which has brought us the highest inflation in nearly 40 years, Americans left behind in Afghanistan, a COVID-19 pandemic that’s still raging, homicide rates at all-time highs in major Democrat-run cities, and a historic southern border crisis, with thousands of illegal immigrants crossing and being released into the U.S. without being tracked each month.
The central theme of President Biden’s campaign — which he conducted entirely from his basement — was that he would “shut down the virus” by using a unified federal response. His campaign blasted former President Donald J. Trump for a failed “Articles of Confederation” strategy, despite Mr. Trump’s mobilization of Operation Warp Speed, which included the approval of three U.S. vaccines to treat the virus and a plan to get them distributed.
This week, Mr. Biden let the virus defeat him. In a meeting with governors, he admitted: “There is no federal solution” to COVID-19 and then jetted off to his beach house to vacation, as COVID-19 cases hit a record high.
Yet, there’s plenty the Biden administration could’ve done, and refused to do, to better tackle COVID-19.
Shortly after Mr. Biden declared victory, beating the pandemic on July 4, Abbott Laboratories, one of the leading producers of rapid tests, started destroying its inventory. It laid-off workers, canceled contracts with suppliers and shut down its plant in Illinois, as sales for its 15-minute antigen test pummeled. Had the federal government secured a contract with the company — understanding the seasonality of the virus — perhaps there wouldn’t have been the Christmastime testing shortage.
Mr. Biden’s one-dimensional focus on vaccinations has also come at the cost of other promising therapeutics used to treat COVID-19.
This month, the Food and Drug Administration finally approved two oral antiviral drugs that can be taken within five days of COVID-19 symptom onset. The drugs have proven to reduce hospitalizations and deaths. The bad news? The Biden administration hasn’t ordered enough of these pills, and they will have to be rationed this winter. No Operation Warp Speed when it comes to life-saving therapeutics.
Then, there has been the Biden administration’s attack on monoclonal antibody COVID-19 treatments, which have shown great efficacy, especially regarding the delta variant. Last week the FDA said it was pausing the distribution of the therapies, citing research that suggests the treatments are not as effective against the omicron variant.
Yet, the Biden administration has no idea how prevalent the omicron variant is, and those with delta shouldn’t be denied this treatment. On Tuesday, Biden’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention slashed last week’s omicron estimates from 73% of cases to 22% of cases – a 50-point drop!
“There’s no way around it. It is a huge swing that makes it seem like something went really wrong,” Dr. Shruti Gohil, associate medical director for epidemiology and infection prevention at UC Irvine’s School of Medicine, told NPR. You don’t say.
As of late, there’s been no “science” guiding the Biden administration’s COVID-19 strategy — it’s just winging it.
The CDC halved the quarantine period from 10 days to 5 days, shortly after receiving a letter from the CEO of Delta Airlines requesting they do it, and after thousands of U.S. flights were canceled over the holidays because of staffing shortages.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told The Washington Post on Tuesday the guidelines were revised because there “were starting to be limitations in society,” adding “the guidance is only as good as society’s willingness to follow it.”
Well, it’s about time the Biden administration admitted that. Now, drop the federal vaccination mandates, start investing and distributing therapeutics and testing to the states, and stop waging war on the unvaccinated.
Mr. Biden was never going to “shut down the virus.” But his administration can set the example on how we can live with it.
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