By Noah Rothman
Monday, February 08, 2021
Of the many rationales that justified a vote for Joe
Biden in 2020, the one the president’s campaign preferred most was that he
would rein in the out-of-control pandemic and restore a sense of normalcy.
“As president,” Biden said at the Democratic Party’s nominating
convention, “the first step I will take will be to get control of the virus
that’s ruined so many lives.” Specifically, he observed, we could not restore
the economy, get kids back in the classroom, and take “our lives back” until
the pandemic had been checked. “I will take care of this,” Biden promised
during an October
presidential debate. “I will end this. I will make sure we have a plan.”
According to the Washington
Post, that plan was “a far more muscular federal approach” than the one
preferred by Donald Trump. His advisers insisted that it was ready
to go on day one. And even though it did not differ much from the Trump
plan, it nevertheless emphasized a singular objective that was both desirable
and imminently achievable: contain the pandemic and reopen society.
Since Inauguration Day, however, the Biden administration
has telegraphed mixed signals about when or even if we will ever be able to
enjoy post-pandemic America. This White House and its allies rarely speak with
one voice on the matter. Indeed, executive-branch agencies and appointees
regularly contradict one another. And some have even begun to lay the
rhetorical groundwork that would justify pandemic-related restrictions in
perpetuity.
As Dr. Anthony Fauci often insists, the accelerating pace
of COVID-19 vaccine distribution suggests that “by the fall of 2021, we can
start approaching some degree of normality.” It’s not terribly comforting that
we will only be “approaching” a “degree” of normality, but, despite the
self-indemnifying ambiguity, at least Fauci articulated a clear goal:
“normality.” Others within the public health community aren’t so confident.
“Going through the five phases of grief, we need to come
to the acceptance phase that our lives are not going to be the same,” insisted
former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Thomas Frieden. “I
don’t think the world has really absorbed the fact that these are long-term
changes.” That could mean everything from pandemic-related restrictions on
social interaction to public masking, testing and temperature-taking regimes,
and indoor ventilation standards. As the Wall Street Journal reported,
all of this contributes to a “potentially lucrative COVID-19 industry” that,
while onerous for most, has been very good to a few.
So far, the Biden administration has tried to have it
both ways—coddling those who appear to welcome a perpetual pandemic while
assuring those who don’t that deliverance is near at hand. In a pre-Super Bowl interview
with CBS News, President Biden said that it was necessary and possible for
schools to reopen safely in accordance with CDC guidelines, which will be
forthcoming shortly (never mind that the CDC produced just such a set of
guidelines as far back as last August). But a sprawling White House COVID-19
strategy memo released by the Biden White House last month also provides
for the possibility that “new coronavirus variants that may have a higher
transmission rate” might forestall the resumption of full-day, in-person
education. And, in a late January call with teachers’ unions’ representatives,
Fauci said that those variants, which “may” be more resistant to vaccines, are
likely to scuttle the president’s desire to see K-8 classrooms reopen
nationally.
The confusion doesn’t end there.
“It’s not just a vaccine [which is] obviously an
incredible medical breakthrough, and we want everyone to have one,” said Press
Secretary Jen Psaki last week.
“But even after you’re vaccinated, social distancing [and] wearing masks will
be essential.” But according
to the CDC, the efficacy of vaccines that have received emergency FDA
approval is such that it “protects you from getting sick with COVID-19.” There
may be social benefits in behaving as though being fully immunized does not
confer any protection to the virus—for example, communicating to non-vaccinated
people that masking is appropriate. But this is a political message, not a
scientific one.
Likewise, Psaki took the abnormal step of undermining CDC
Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky’s authority after the latter had the audacity to
say what we know to be a fact: “There is increasing data to suggest that
schools can safely re-open and that safe reopening does not suggest that
teachers need to be vaccinated.” The notion that “vaccinations of teachers is
not a prerequisite for opening schools” may comport with the data, but it also
weakens a negotiating position adopted by some especially obdurate
teachers’ unions. Dr. Walensky, Psaki
insisted, was only speaking in her “personal capacity.” Oddly, the White
House elected to make this supposedly personal statement, which Walensky made
during a press conference with reporters from behind the James Brady Briefing
Room’s lectern, part
of the public record.
And as some states begin to relax COVID-related
restrictions and the winter surge of cases subsides, Biden officials are
retreating to the language that typified the earliest days of the pandemic.
“100 Days of masking to bend the curve,” Chief of Staff Ron Klain remarked. “Is
that too much to ask?” Not only is his reversion to the rhetoric of last March
disconcerting, it seems utterly untethered to the metrics around the pandemic,
which include not just case rates but deaths and hospitalizations as well. The
“curve” is not just bending. It is collapsing. That trajectory is surely aided
to some degree by the rapid dissemination of vaccines. It would be unwise to
take a premature victory lap, but it is inexplicably hidebound to pretend as
though there has been no progress at all over the last month.
Underlying all this is an arguably prudent fear that the
disease will mutate in a way that renders it uncontrollable again, and anyone
who had one optimistic word to say today will be made to account for their
faulty predictions at some terrible point in the near future. But soon enough,
that prudence will conflict directly with President Biden’s self-set political
imperative to restore the pre-pandemic status quo. Whether he wants one or not,
a fight is coming, and Biden will have to choose sides.
No comments:
Post a Comment