NOT OVER UNTIL IT'S OVER — President Joe Biden shocked even his own public health officials last night when he declared in a "60 Minutes" interview that "the pandemic is over." Biden's declaration, which was not in his planned remarks for the interview, according to POLITICO's Adam Cancryn, was his most definitive statement on the pandemic to date. Even as the administration shifts out of crisis mode, White House public health officials have come nowhere close to such a sweeping statement. The pandemic isn't over, Biden aides told Adam as recently as earlier this month , but with vaccines, tests and therapeutics, officials do see the virus as less of a lethal threat and more of a manageable disease for most Americans. That's why the president's remarks were met with surprise and widespread criticism. Public health experts refuted Biden and pointed to the data: More than 400 Americans on average are dying from Covid every day, and the seven-day average of daily Covid cases is currently tops 60,000 — a figure that's likely a gross underestimate now that many Americans have access to at-home testing. A recent report from the Brookings Institution estimates 16 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 65 have long Covid. Another expert called for the president to issue an "airtight statement" acknowledging that his words were not supported by facts. White House officials on Sunday downplayed Biden's comments as simply an attempt to reflect where the U.S. is at now, according to Adam — that is, still dealing with Covid but not gripped by a pandemic that is all-consuming. But whether Biden's phrasing was a gaffe or intentional, the president's precise words matter for pandemic policy and public health messaging as the U.S. continues its battle with Covid. "It didn't make sense from a policy perspective," Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine , told Nightly. "I don't want to take away from the fact that the president overall has done a good job as the leader fighting Covid. But you can't really say the statements are just careless because he said it — I mean, I listened to it — he made a point of saying it twice." The president's declaration comes at a delicate time. Most Americans are moving on from Covid, and the U.S. is at a much better place than it was two years ago. As Megan Ranney, dean of Brown University's school of public health, said on Twitter, the pandemic is different now that we have tools like vaccines and growing immunity. Americans have treatments and tests. The fatality rate is down. But the pandemic is over? "I call malarkey," Ranney said. Since the pandemic began in the early months of 2020, the U.S. has experienced a winter surge every year, driven by a new variant. Vaccination access in many low- and middle-income countries remains minimal, leaving room for the virus to continue to spread and evolve. "The conditions are still ripe" for a new variant this winter, Hotez said. If that's the case, he said, Biden's declaration will only hurt the White House in the coming months if administration officials once again have to plead with Americans to remain vigilant. His remarks also won't help with the country's already-struggling booster uptake, Hotez said. The FDA and CDC just authorized a new Covid booster shot, and the White House has pushed Americans to roll up their sleeves for the Omicron-specific vaccine. Earlier this summer, Covid shots became available for young children, but the vaccination rate remains abysmal: Just under 325,000 young children are fully vaccinated across the U.S., according to the CDC. "As a country, we're currently doing a very bad job encouraging Americans to accept boosters," Hotez said, adding that Biden's latest statement won't encourage parents to vaccinate their children. "So this is not a time to be spiking the ball on the 20-yard line, which is what that was." Republicans also found fault with Biden's comments, but for a different reason — they questioned why pandemic measures are still in place at all. Thirteen states are still under a form of emergency due to the pandemic. The administration has also faced pressure to lift the military's Covid vaccine mandate amid a recruiting crunch. Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said if the pandemic is over, "then all of the President's emergency powers predicated on a pandemic, all COVID vax mandates, the emergency powers of every governor, Emergency Use Authorizations, and the PREP act should all be voided tomorrow." Biden's comments will only complicate the administration's efforts to secure $22.4 billion in Covid funding on the Hill, Hotez said. The administration has warned that free rapid tests and free vaccines will end without more money, while public health experts have sounded the alarm that racial and economic disparities around infections and deaths from the virus will worsen as a result. "This is not a statement you make when you're trying to persuade the Congress to allocate funds," Hotez said. "For public health, scientific, policy reasons — not the way to go. He hit the trifecta." Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight's author at mward@politico.com or on Twitter @MyahWard. Adnan Syed was released today — eight years after Serial dissected his murder case in a 12-episode series that enraptured the world, put podcasting on the map and made him a household name. The show will revisit Syed's story in a new episode, out Tuesday morning.
| 
No comments:
Post a Comment