Opinion: Biden delivered his best speech on covid-19 yet
President Biden in a
speech on Tuesday pivoted to a more nuanced — and more pointed — message on the omicron variant. He firmly leveled with voters, both those who have followed guidelines and are sick of shouldering the burden of the pandemic and those who remain unvaccinated.
Biden made clear that for vaccinated and boosted people, the new variant would likely cause mild or no symptoms. He took advantage of his predecessor’s recent announcement that he had received a booster shot, ruefully remarking that it’s “one of the few things we agree on.”
He also assured the country that it would not return to the sort of lockdowns it saw in March 2020. Likewise, there is no need to close schools, he said. With vaccines, treatments, tests and adequate supply of protective equipment, the United States is in a radically different position compared with the early months of his administration.
As for the unvaccinated, Biden sounded like a stern, concerned parent. “You are at a high risk of getting sick,” he warned. “Almost everyone who has died from covid-19 in the past many months has been unvaccinated.” He stopped shy of scolding them, but he did tell these Americans that they needed to get the vaccine for themselves, their families and their country. “I, honest to God, believe it’s your patriotic duty,” he added.
This was music to the ears of those
urging a more unvarnished, direct message from the president.
Biden pointedly said that people are responsible for their own choices, but also issued a sharp rebuke for those who have been spreading covid-19 disinformation. “These companies and personalities are making money by peddling lies and allowing misinformation that can kill their own customers and their own supporters,” he said. “It’s wrong. It’s immoral. I call on the purveyors of these lies and misinformation to stop it.”
While he did not say it directly, rising case numbers among vaccinated Americans are less meaningful than ever. For a fully vaccinated and boosted person who tests positive but has virtually no symptoms, covid-19 is not much different from other contagious respiratory ailments. The real threat lies among the unvaccinated.
Biden acknowledged his administration’s vaccine mandates are not popular. But to those who feel put upon, Biden offered, “My administration has put them in place not to control your life, but to save your life and the lives of others.” He plainly has not given up on the mandates, but neither are they the center of his effort (in part because so many large employers have
already complied).
And while it’s true that the long lines for testing have become a sore point with many Americans, Biden promised to speed up testing locations and the supply of home testing kits (although the
500 million free rapid tests the government is providing won’t start being distributed until January). Asked about the lag in making testing available, Biden sounded somewhat defensive, explaining that it has been only a few weeks since omicron appeared. Surely, we will soon be able to evaluate whether much more testing should have been widely available much earlier, as has been the case in many European countries.
Biden’s speech may have been his best of the pandemic. He recognized the sacrifices of those who have done the right thing while turning up the urgency for the unvaccinated to avoid endangering themselves and others. His harshest remarks were saved for the cynical manipulators who make money from misinforming — and imperiling — others.
Whether Biden’s words move vaccine refusers remains to be seen. But the sheer number of cases may be enough to alarm them, forcing many to finally get vaccinated. And in invoking his predecessor, Biden made a valiant effort to separate MAGA politics from the pandemic.
That may be the most critical factor in putting the pandemic behind us.
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