At long last, a sense of reality seems to be settling in at the White House that we will have to live with Covid-19, even if President Biden didn’t say so explicitly in his speech Tuesday. He can’t “shut down the virus” as he claimed in the campaign. But at least he isn’t shutting down the economy or schools.
Mr. Biden was at pains to say Tuesday that this is no time to panic, even as the Omicron variant spreads. He advised Americans not to abandon their holiday plans if they’re vaccinated, though he repeated his dire warning about the unvaccinated. He even offered a grace note to Donald Trump for producing the vaccines, which must be a first.
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Then again, there isn’t much the Administration can do at this point. It plans to distribute 500 million free at-home tests, though not until January because ramping up manufacturing takes time. Mr. Biden hammered the Trump Administration over long test lines, but now the reality is his.
Last year the major challenge was a shortage of testing reagents. Now it’s a shortage of workers, which is also hamstringing the vaccine booster campaign. Mr. Biden’s vaccine mandate may be contributing to the testing snarls. Ditto hospital staffing shortages. Some governors have called in their National Guard to assist at overburdened hospitals, some of which have lost unvaccinated staff.
Mr. Biden was at pains to say Tuesday that this is no time to panic, even as the Omicron variant spreads. He advised Americans not to abandon their holiday plans if they’re vaccinated, though he repeated his dire warning about the unvaccinated. He even offered a grace note to Donald Trump for producing the vaccines, which must be a first.
OPINION: POTOMAC WATCH
Joe Manchin Torpedoes Build Back Better
00:00
Then again, there isn’t much the Administration can do at this point. It plans to distribute 500 million free at-home tests, though not until January because ramping up manufacturing takes time. Mr. Biden hammered the Trump Administration over long test lines, but now the reality is his.
Last year the major challenge was a shortage of testing reagents. Now it’s a shortage of workers, which is also hamstringing the vaccine booster campaign. Mr. Biden’s vaccine mandate may be contributing to the testing snarls. Ditto hospital staffing shortages. Some governors have called in their National Guard to assist at overburdened hospitals, some of which have lost unvaccinated staff.
Mr. Biden also says he’ll mobilize 1,000 military medical professionals and hundreds of ambulances and emergency medical teams to transport patients in overwhelmed hospitals to open beds at other facilities. This will help states deal with surges in hot spots.
But the main government priority has to be accelerating the approval and production of therapies and vaccines to cope with new variants. Monoclonal antibodies were rationed even before the current surge, and the Regeneron and Eli Lilly treatments that the U.S. has relied on don’t hold up well against Omicron. GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology’s monoclonal works better but there are only about 50,000 total doses on hand. The Administration ordered more last month but it should have done so sooner.
Pfizer has applied for emergency-use authorization for its antiviral pill, which was found to cut the risk of hospitalization by about 90% in high-risk patients if taken within five days of symptom onset. The Food and Drug Administration should approve it pronto. The Administration could also recommend off-label use of the anti-depressant fluvoxamine, which has proven highly effective in preventing hospitalizations in randomized control trials.
Wasn’t Democrats’ $1.9 trillion spending bill in March supposed to pay for more testing and treatments? Too much of the money went to progressive political groups, and the U.S. pandemic recovery has been worse off for it.
Mr. Biden campaigned on vanquishing Covid, but he has done no better than Mr. Trump despite the benefit of better therapies and vaccines. He isn’t responsible for the Covid deaths on his watch any more than Mr. Trump was, and it would help him politically if he said so.
The reality is that the virus will eventually become endemic, like many other pathogens that humanity lives with. Immunity from vaccines and infections over time should lessen its severity. Omicron may accelerate this process, and we will be fortunate if it turns out to be less virulent, as some evidence suggests.
South Africa has reported that only 1.7% of cases were being hospitalized during the second week of the Omicron wave compared to 19% during the Delta surge earlier in the year. Hong Kong researchers have found that Omicron replicated 10 times more slowly than the original strain in samples of human lung tissue, which may reduce the risk of pneumonia.
Some schools and colleges are going virtual again, but even most Democratic governors are ruling out more lockdowns, unlike European politicians. For that we can thank public insistence more than the most quoted public-health experts, who appear all too willing to force the public back into isolation even two years into the pandemic. The people are wiser than the experts.
But the main government priority has to be accelerating the approval and production of therapies and vaccines to cope with new variants. Monoclonal antibodies were rationed even before the current surge, and the Regeneron and Eli Lilly treatments that the U.S. has relied on don’t hold up well against Omicron. GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology’s monoclonal works better but there are only about 50,000 total doses on hand. The Administration ordered more last month but it should have done so sooner.
Pfizer has applied for emergency-use authorization for its antiviral pill, which was found to cut the risk of hospitalization by about 90% in high-risk patients if taken within five days of symptom onset. The Food and Drug Administration should approve it pronto. The Administration could also recommend off-label use of the anti-depressant fluvoxamine, which has proven highly effective in preventing hospitalizations in randomized control trials.
Wasn’t Democrats’ $1.9 trillion spending bill in March supposed to pay for more testing and treatments? Too much of the money went to progressive political groups, and the U.S. pandemic recovery has been worse off for it.
Mr. Biden campaigned on vanquishing Covid, but he has done no better than Mr. Trump despite the benefit of better therapies and vaccines. He isn’t responsible for the Covid deaths on his watch any more than Mr. Trump was, and it would help him politically if he said so.
The reality is that the virus will eventually become endemic, like many other pathogens that humanity lives with. Immunity from vaccines and infections over time should lessen its severity. Omicron may accelerate this process, and we will be fortunate if it turns out to be less virulent, as some evidence suggests.
South Africa has reported that only 1.7% of cases were being hospitalized during the second week of the Omicron wave compared to 19% during the Delta surge earlier in the year. Hong Kong researchers have found that Omicron replicated 10 times more slowly than the original strain in samples of human lung tissue, which may reduce the risk of pneumonia.
Some schools and colleges are going virtual again, but even most Democratic governors are ruling out more lockdowns, unlike European politicians. For that we can thank public insistence more than the most quoted public-health experts, who appear all too willing to force the public back into isolation even two years into the pandemic. The people are wiser than the experts.
