For months, everything seemed to be breaking Joe Biden’s way in the battle against the pandemic. Vaccinations were up, caseloads were down, and the masks were starting to come off—safely, for those who’d been inoculated. America, he said as the country celebrated Independence Day, was “emerging from the darkness,” and climbing back toward a pre-COVID normalcy.
But that optimism was short-lived. Those who are vaccinated are certainly safer than they were at this time last year, even against more infectious variants. But for vaccine holdouts, those with compromised immune systems, and children, things have grown dire. Hospitals are once again overwhelmed with patients. High levels of community spread are endangering the most vulnerable among us and threatening to produce new mutations. And frustrations are mounting as a virus that *can be controlled—*and very nearly was—continues to rage.
With the fight against COVID reaching high noon, Biden is due to deliver an address on Thursday in which he’s expected to outline new steps his administration will take to bring the pandemic to heel. Details of the strategy have yet to emerge in full, but according to the Associated Press, part of it will involve a mandate that all federal executive branch employees and federal contractors get the vaccine—reportedly with no option to be regularly tested instead. Ideally, the move will put more pressure on holdouts to get their shots. “We know that increasing vaccinations will stop the spread of the pandemic, will get the pandemic under control, will return people to normal life,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday. “That’s what our objective is.”
In an appearance on CNN’s New Day Thursday morning, Psaki suggested that Biden may also push school districts to mandate vaccines for children 12 and up. “Good for them,” she said of the Los Angeles school board’s upcoming vote to require students and employees to be vaccinated. “Putting in place requirements that would increase the number of people who are vaccinated, decrease the number of people who are unvaccinated around kids, is a step forward and something, yes, we’ve been encouraging.”
Up to this point, mere encouragement has not been enough. Governments and individual businesses have required inoculation, but much of the effort has seemed to focus on public information campaigns—that the shots are safe and the virus gravely dangerous—and incentives such as lottery entries. Though vaccinations have ticked up amid the delta surge, infections remain far too high: ten times higher, Dr. Anthony Fauci told Axios Thursday, than where we need to be to end the pandemic.
To some extent, there is a limit to what Biden, whose poll numbers have slid amid the resurgent pandemic, can do. Lack of trust in the vaccines, driven by cynical culture warriors and conspiracy theories, is going to be difficult to overcome. It’s not Biden’s fault that some would apparently prefer to take a horse dewormer than a safe, effective vaccine, or that GOP leaders like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott seem hellbent on turning their states into COVID petri dishes, or that the pandemic has been so absurdly politicized. Bold moves from the executive branch are undoubtedly a good thing. But it remains to be seen whether inconvenience will have the intended effect. Asked Wednesday if the steps Biden plans to announce would “influence the average American’s day-to-day life,” Psaki replied: “It depends on if you’re vaccinated or not.”
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