Instead, the administration said that 150 million Americans – less than half of the country – could be reimbursed for tests if they had insurance, if they fronted the money, if they could wait to be reimbursed, and if they didn’t buy them until mid-January. Tests purchased before the holidays would be ineligible for reimbursement. Meanwhile, tests were impossible to find in huge swathes of the country – or required standing in lines so long that they were only accessible to those who could afford what amounted to a tax on people’s time.

It was a plan that was so complicated, so limited, so inadequate, and so fundamentally wrong-headed that it exemplified everything that has gone wrong with the Biden administration’s response to the coronavirus to date.

A mantra of successful health campaigns is “make the healthy choice the easy choice”. But the Biden administration has been intent on making matters that should be easy difficult, prioritizing rules and regulations over results, deferring to private industry in matters of state responsibility, burdening individuals already at their breaking points, adding cumbersome barriers of time and logistics, being too slow, and displaying too much contempt and too little urgency in responding to cries for help.