Joe Biden is fighting to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind him
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden’s administration has been working for months to prepare people to reconsider their personal risk calculations as the nation gets used to the idea of living with an endemic COVID-19.
But the measured approach abruptly disappeared when a federal judge on Monday dismissed the federal requirement to disguise himself when using mass transportation. The ruling hastily increased the message challenge as the administration tries to get past the virus in the run-up to the midterm elections.
After the government last month relaxed the guidelines for indoor mask wearing for the vast majority of Americans – even in schools – masking on planes was one of the last complaints of the national COVID-19 restrictions. Now that the policy is falling, the administration is turning to speeding up its efforts to give the best advice to millions who make their own personal safety decisions in the still dangerous pandemic.
It is both a requirement for public health and an important shift in weight for Biden’s political future.
“There’s an opportunity now, instead of saying this is a disappointing verdict, they could say this is a good time to have a conversation about how we move forward in this risk calculation pandemic,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infection doctor and a senior researcher at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
“With COVID-19, I think we are at a time of immunity from previous infections, vaccines, home tests and treatments where we can start dealing with this the way we deal with other infectious diseases,” he said.
Biden himself went all-in on flexibility on Tuesday when asked if Americans should disguise themselves on planes.
“It’s up to them,” Biden declared during a visit to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. But his own White House nonetheless requires face clothing for those traveling with him on Air Force One, citing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The shift toward less formal regulation was actually previewed in a 100-page plan released by the White House coronavirus response team in February. At the time, administration officials had hoped that children under 5 would now be eligible for vaccination – a move that would have eased the concern of millions of parents and provided the umbrella of protection to almost everyone in the United States who wanted it.
Monday’s court ruling to lift the mask mandate came at a crossroads in the nation’s pandemic response, just one year to the day all American adults were eligible for COVID-19 vaccination. The decision sent government agencies and the White House to comply, but it did not stop the immediate confusion among travelers as airlines and airports dropped their mask requirements – in some cases in the middle of the flight.
The administration stressed that Americans should still adhere to the CDC’s recommendations to wear face masks, even in the absence of a mandate. Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, said the same thing just an hour before his “up to them” comment.
“The CDC continues to advise and recommend masks on aircraft. We adhere to the CDC’s recommendations, is the president, and we would advise all Americans to do so,” she said.
On Tuesday, Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said officials believe the federal mask order was “a valid exercise of the authority Congress has given the CDC to protect public health.” He said it was “an important authority that the ministry will continue to work to preserve.”
But he said the department would only appeal the ruling if the CDC decided that the mask mandate was still necessary for public health. By Tuesday night, the agency had not made a decision, officials said.
Psaki indicated on Tuesday that although the administration was disappointed with the ruling, it was not commensurate with Congress’ inability to reach a compromise on additional COVID funding to buy booster shots and antiviral treatments.
“Those are our biggest concerns,” she said.
Requirements for face coverage, which have been shown to lower the risk of infection, have become more and more political in the United States over the past year, especially as cases and serious outcomes have declined.
The long-standing mandate of public transportation and air travel served as a daily reminder to many people that the pandemic they wanted to be past still affected their lives, even though vaccinations and antiviral treatments had reduced their risk dramatically. For others who are still afraid of the virus, each withdrawal of pandemic restrictions has sparked new unrest – and in some cases criticism of the Biden administration.
“There are still a lot of people in this country who still want to have masks in place – either they have immunocompromised relatives, they have children under the age of 5, whatever that may be,” Psaki said.
Monday’s court ruling hastened a result that would likely come in weeks anyway. Many officials in the administration thought that last week’s 15-day extension of the mask order until May 3 would be the last. The public health agency had asked for additional time to monitor whether a recent increase in infections would result in increased hospitalizations or deaths. So far it has not.
The court’s ruling surprised the administration and made it struggle to understand its impact – both on the termination of the claim and on the CDC’s authorities in the future.
“CDC researchers had asked for 15 days to make a more data-driven sustainable decision,” tweeted Dr. Aashish Jha, the new COVID-19 coordinator in the White House, on Tuesday. “We should have given it to them.”
The rise in cases and a recent wave of positive cases in Biden’s circuit – including other gentleman Doug Emhoff and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – was a potent reminder that the virus is not disappearing.
Biden, 79, was never identified as a “close contact” under CDC guidelines, the White House said, and officials stressed that he is heavily protected from the virus by being vaccinated and twice boosted.
Fighting the virus, which has killed 986,000 Americans, has been a priority for Biden since joining. The U.S. now has an average of about 35,000 confirmed cases a day, down from a maximum of more than 806,000 during the January omicron rise, but a small rise from the lowest level of about 26,000 a month ago. These numbers are definitely a minority, as many people do not report the results of home tests to the public health authorities.
History of Zeke Miller. Associated Press writers Chris Megerian and Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.