Two weeks ago, almost to the day, the White House officially scoffed at the idea of mailing rapid-antigen COVID tests to every American household. Today as Omicron cases — but not hospitalizations — have created a new wave in the pandemic, Joe Biden suddenly has reconsidered the idea. Before we get to the details, let’s recall Jen Psaki’s sarcastic retort when a reporter pointed out that other Western governments had supplied people free tests to control outbreaks:

Jen Psaki somewhat mockingly asks reporter at the White House Daily Press Briefing if the US should be sending out rapid #COVID19 tests to every household.

In the UK you can order 1 pack (containing 7 tests) everyday. https://t.co/ErnSsiLxxl pic.twitter.com/L7ruKWdy5n

— Matt Karolian (@mkarolian) December 6, 2021

What a difference a fortnight makes, as well as demonstrated impotence. ABC News reported earlier today that the White House has reversed course and plans to send out 500 million tests, beginning next month, but still only on request:

President Joe Biden will announce a plan on Tuesday to distribute 500 million free at-home rapid tests to Americans beginning in January as part of an attempt to double down on the spread of a transmissible variant that has hit the U.S. distressingly close to the holidays.

Biden’s new efforts come as the omicron variant became the most dominant COVID strain in the country Monday, accounting for nearly three-quarters of all cases, and just as travel kicks off at nearly pre-pandemic levels for the holiday season.

The free at-home rapid tests will be delivered by mail to Americans who request them, a senior administration official told reporters on Monday night in a preview of the speech, marking a slightly different approach from European countries that chose to send tests to all residents.

The requests will have to come through a web portal that won’t be operational until early next month. That may well be closing the barn door after the colt has bolted, though. Omicron is ripping through the population so fast that it’s already clocking in at 73% of all identified COVID-19 cases in the US. Vaccinations are critical to keeping infections from becoming serious, but they are apparently not helping to stop Omicron’s transmissibility:

The extremely contagious Omicron variant is now the dominant version of new coronavirus cases in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and has prompted the resumption of mask mandates in some cities and states in the Northeast, where the growth in new cases has been particularly steep.

Omicron, first discovered overseas around Thanksgiving and identified in the U.S. on Dec. 1, now accounts for more than 70 percent of new U.S. cases, according to federal estimates released Monday.

The estimates underscored the rapid spread of the new variant. Two weeks ago, the C.D.C. said Omicron accounted for just 1 percent of U.S. cases; a week ago, it was about 13 percent. Delta, which for months had been the dominant form of the virus, accounted for about 26 percent of new cases over the last week, the C.D.C. estimated.

Omicron, discovered thanks to its distinctive combination of more than 50 mutations, has turned out to be highly transmissible — two to three times as likely to spread as Delta — and less susceptible to vaccines than other variants. Early cases raised hopes that it may cause milder disease than other variants, but scientists say more research is needed.

With cases doubling every two days, another fortnight without widespread testing promises to leave little benefit by the time these tests arrive:

“We’ve really not seen anything like this before. It has a doubling time of about two days.” -Dr. Anthony Fauci on the omicron variant pic.twitter.com/0unEtDmPx2

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) December 21, 2021

It’s the same problem that pertains to mitigation efforts that will begin after the first of the year in some places. It’s too late for that now. And to be fair, it probably wouldn’t have worked anyway. Omicron is so much more transmissible that it would have gotten around those measures. Fortunately, thus far it’s proving so mild that it’s barely moving the hospitalization needle:

JUST NOW: "We're doing very, very well. Very manageable. There's no crisis. We have about 460 patients in our hospitals. That's less than 10% of our overall capacity."@NorthwellHealth CEO @MichaelJDowling on Hospital situation in New York. pic.twitter.com/JGXJahwMBy

— John Berman (@JohnBerman) December 21, 2021

So there may not be much of a need for these tests by the time Biden and his team finally start pushing them out the door. ABC calls this “a significant departure” from the Biden administration’s “posture,” but it’s yet another example of how the Biden administration has no real “posture” on issues at all. They are entirely reactive, just as they have been on the supply chain crisis, the massive inflation this year from their reactive stimulus package in March, and especially in the disaster of their ill-planned retreat from Afghanistan.

Testing has been an ongoing failure in this pandemic for both administrations, as Allahpundit pointed out two weeks ago. Donald Trump and his team put all of their Operation Warp Speed eggs in the vaccine/therapeutics basket, which has been and remains critical for the fight against the pandemic, even if they should have handled test creation and distribution in parallel. Biden already had the vaccines when he took office, however. So why didn’t Biden address the testing gap, especially with European nations demonstrating the importance of widespread testing to hold down transmission spikes? Why did they scoff at the very idea as late as two weeks ago, almost a full week after the first confirmed case of Omicron in the US?

This is the most reactive, un-strategic White House in memory. They have no plans. They only react when failures get noticed, and usually incompetently and too late to matter. Thankfully this failure will be less deadly than their disgrace in Afghanistan, but only because we may get lucky with this variant.