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In a Sunday night interview with CBS News host Scott Pelley, President Joe Biden declared the Covid-19 pandemic “over.” News media, fellow Democrats and even members of Biden’s own administration soon cried foul. But while the president’s assertion may irritate political media and even his own party, his observation has the inestimable virtue of being correct.
The first notes of disapproval over the president’s assessment of the pandemic’s trajectory followed within minutes of its broadcast. “Biden says 'the pandemic is over,’” Reuters reportedSunday night, “even as death toll, costs mount.”
A follow-up analysis pointed out that Biden may not believe his own rhetoric since his administration is prepared to extend the public health emergency around Covid into next year.
While the president’s assertion may irritate political media and even his own party, his observation has the inestimable virtue of being correct.
Is the pandemic really over, ABC News asked. "The pandemic is emphatically not over," University of California, San Francisco professor Peter Chin-Hong answered, pointing to roughly 400 Covid-related deaths each day — 223,000 in this year alone. "That's several-fold higher than a typical flu season,” he added.
NPR clucked its tongue at the president’s assertion, despite the “thousands of cases being detected every day” and those that go unreported because of mild symptoms or at-home tests that official statistics do not capture.
“We’re in the middle of the greatest mass-disabling event in human history,” one advocate for so-called long Covid sufferers told Time magazine. He added that a return to normalcy was “a crime against humanity.”
It was, however, The Washington Post editorial board that identified the political (and, perhaps, legal) land mine onto which the president had stumbled.
If Biden ends the public health emergency around Covid, the Post reasoned, “some 15 million will lose Medicaid coverage; the reason for a student loan repayment pause will end; the rationale for Trump-era border restrictions, still held in place by a court, will disappear.”
Gutted, too, are the legal arguments for mask mandates on airlines, vaccination requirements on federal employees, and the transfer of millions in student loan debt from borrowers to taxpayers.
The first notes of disapproval over the president’s assessment of the pandemic’s trajectory followed within minutes of its broadcast. “Biden says 'the pandemic is over,’” Reuters reportedSunday night, “even as death toll, costs mount.”
A follow-up analysis pointed out that Biden may not believe his own rhetoric since his administration is prepared to extend the public health emergency around Covid into next year.
While the president’s assertion may irritate political media and even his own party, his observation has the inestimable virtue of being correct.
Is the pandemic really over, ABC News asked. "The pandemic is emphatically not over," University of California, San Francisco professor Peter Chin-Hong answered, pointing to roughly 400 Covid-related deaths each day — 223,000 in this year alone. "That's several-fold higher than a typical flu season,” he added.
NPR clucked its tongue at the president’s assertion, despite the “thousands of cases being detected every day” and those that go unreported because of mild symptoms or at-home tests that official statistics do not capture.
“We’re in the middle of the greatest mass-disabling event in human history,” one advocate for so-called long Covid sufferers told Time magazine. He added that a return to normalcy was “a crime against humanity.”
It was, however, The Washington Post editorial board that identified the political (and, perhaps, legal) land mine onto which the president had stumbled.
If Biden ends the public health emergency around Covid, the Post reasoned, “some 15 million will lose Medicaid coverage; the reason for a student loan repayment pause will end; the rationale for Trump-era border restrictions, still held in place by a court, will disappear.”
Gutted, too, are the legal arguments for mask mandates on airlines, vaccination requirements on federal employees, and the transfer of millions in student loan debt from borrowers to taxpayers.
Opinion | Why Biden was right to say the pandemic is over
For Democrats to benefit from a retrospective on the pandemic, the White House's actions must match Biden's words.
www.msnbc.com