In one sense, the attitude described here is quite Trumpy. Faced with an unpleasant reality, the president and his team are simply going to try to talk people into viewing it differently. Sure, Biden once promised to “shut down the virus.” But he has! He’s shut it down … as much as it could realistically be shut down.
In another sense, though, it’s the opposite of Trumpy. Trump’s attitude in early 2020 wasn’t just to try to talk people into viewing COVID as no big deal, it was to nudge them into behaving that way. Remember how he initially wanted the country open for business again by Easter, just a month or so after the virus had begun spreading in earnest? Team Biden’s approach, according to Politico, is to encourage people to view the post-Omicron period as the “new normal” — but to not behave much differently.
Or maybe they do want people to behave differently? As others have noted today, it’s hard to tell just what the hell the White House has in mind here apart from speaking more optimistically about COVID in hopes of getting Biden’s job approval up.
Yet even as it maps out the next stage, the White House has ruled out making a splashy show or major announcement regarding a hard pivot back to normalcy. There is fear among aides over repeating last year’s July Fourth “freedom from the virus” celebration — an event that turned politically disastrous weeks later when the Delta variant fueled a swift resurgence of the pandemic. And though it faces pressure to back off some of its more notable — and onerous — public health policies, the administration is also unlikely to drop its indoor masking recommendations, which are seen as among the key tools for preventing new outbreaks.
Officials instead described plans for a more subtle shift over the next several weeks toward touting Biden’s achievements in rolling out vaccines and treatments and emphasizing the everyday things that people can do again if they’re vaccinated — an approach that multiple individuals familiar with the response described as an attempt to convince people they’ll soon be able to relax after two years ruled by Covid-19.
“We can really get to a much more active, less fearful, more normal style of living” if cases keep declining, said one of the people familiar with the response. “We have to reset people’s expectation that they can get back to joy.”
Actual quote from elsewhere in this piece: “[A]s to what metrics will signal success against the virus, officials said they’re still figuring that out — and hope they’ll know it when they see it.”
It sounds like they’re inclined to follow the approach recommended a few days ago by Dr. Leana Wen, namely, dropping all restrictions except vaccination requirements. At this stage, argued Wen, with a huge amount of population immunity and a milder form of the virus prevalent, the country’s focus should be on limiting severe cases that would strain hospitals, not on limiting infections. Emphasize vaccination, de-emphasize everything else.
But the White House can’t bring itself to go that far. “Abandoning guidance on masking now would feel like an acknowledgment that the anti-maskers they have been morally shaming for nearly two years may have been onto something,” Philip Klein speculates about Team Biden’s thinking. “Furthermore, he is surrounded by people who fully bought into restrictions.” Moreover, as noted in the excerpt, the White House has already seen the movie where they rashly encourage everyone to get back to normal in the belief that the worst is behind us. That movie didn’t end well. They don’t want a sequel, knowing how hard it would be to convince weary Americans to start taking precautions again if a new variant starts to spread once they’ve already been told to let down their guards.
Other governments have been bolder this week about dropping restrictions despite Omicron running wild in their countries. Denmark just announced that it’s dropping most COVID rules even though the posture of their pandemic still looks like this:
The Omicron BA.2 wave in Denmark
ICU admissions are declining, but not much else@OurWorldInData pic.twitter.com/f7BpUQDER7— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) February 3, 2022
“Officials say the reason for the Danish move is that while the omicron variant is surging in the country, it’s not placing a heavy burden on the health system,” the AP reported. Again, that’s the Wen approach. Sweden also declared this morning that it’s dropping COVID restrictions as of next Wednesday and several other European countries (Ireland, the Netherlands, France) have begun scaling back. Wen and several other prominent U.S. doctors believe it’s important for the White House to follow suit and show Americans that mandates aren’t forever, in the belief that people are more likely to follow mandates during periods of major surges in the future if those mandates are promptly relaxed during more serene periods.
The White House might agree — in theory. But they don’t seem to have the courage of their convictions the way the Danes and Swedes do. So we may end up with a bizarre PR offensive in which Biden and his team publicly encourage Americans to get back to normal but never quite take a stand against the rules that are preventing them from achieving normalcy. You might still be required to mask, in other words, but you can still enjoy the vibe of normalcy.
Think that’s going to save them in the midterms?
Exit question: Is Fauci still sticking with his long-stated belief that it won’t be appropriate to drop most COVID restrictions until we’re under 10,000 cases per day nationally? Because if that remains the benchmark, restrictions are here forever.
