Just a few short weeks back, Biden stated that the “pandemic is over” as he toured the Detroit Auto Show maskless, noting everyone ‘seems to be in pretty good shape’.
But that was weeks ago, and things change. Like polls and inflation levels.
So Biden is bitterly clinging to his covid emergency powers for the next 90 days, well past the Nov. 8th election.
The decision comes as the pandemic has faded from the forefront of many people’s minds. Daily deaths and infections are dropping and people — many of them maskless — are returning to schools, work and grocery stores as normal.The public health emergency, first declared in January 2020 and renewed every 90 days since, has dramatically changed how health services are delivered.The declaration enabled the emergency authorization of COVID vaccines, testing and treatments for free. It expanded Medicaid coverage to millions of people, many of whom who will risk losing that coverage once the emergency ends. It temporarily opened up telehealth access for Medicare recipients, enabling doctors to collect the same rates for those visits and encouraging health networks to adopt telehealth technology.
While the Biden administration might hope that the application of pandemic rules during the election season may be helpful to the Democrats, it is also important to follow the money. Especially with Biden.
The White House pushed for billions in funding to bolster those efforts as part of a short-term funding bill Congress is aiming to pass this week to avert a government shutdown.But the request has drawn considerable pushback from Senate Republicans in recent weeks, who have pushed for the funding to be offset. Republicans also expressed more opposition to the funding in light of Biden’s recent comments declaring the COVID-19 pandemic “over.”“If that’s true, I’m glad. And so why does he want tens of billions of dollars for COVID?” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) told reporters last week, speculating the comments “certainly makes it harder” for more coronavirus funding to be secured.Earlier this month, the White House asked Congress for more than $22 billion in funding to address what it described as “critical” needs to fund COVID-19 response efforts, including dollars to procure more vaccines, offer free community testing, bolster research, and more.
And as we head into the winter, be prepared for the administration and its media minions to gin-up fear about the new “variants,” especially one that has recently been reported: XBB.
New variants of the rapidly mutating coronavirus are still popping up around the world, and a new iteration of COVID on the rise in Asia may be the most immune-evasive yet.The XBB strain is causing a small surge in cases in countries like Bangladesh and Singapore. The latter has recorded a daily average of about 5,500 cases over the past week, compared to a daily average of 2,000 cases a month ago.Officials in Singapore, which is scaling back its last remaining COVID restrictions to reopen to the rest of the world, are not yet concerned about the increase in cases. On Monday, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung noted that only 15% of the country’s recent COVID cases were reinfections. “If you start to see 50% getting it a second time, you’re going to have a wave,” he said. The health ministry did start doling out Moderna’s Omicron booster on Tuesday, three days ahead of schedule, citing rising infections caused by the new “XBB Omicron subvariant.”
As I have noted several times before, covid is now ubiquitous, endemic, and here to stay. The best approach is simply to expand “cold & flu season” to “cold, covid, & flu” season and get on with sensible policies and less drama.
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