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this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
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Not only did it have more time under it, but it also inherited a public that was much more threatening toward anyone attempting to advance COVID control measures, including common sense ones like masking indoors.
The utter lunacy that polluted the public square during the late 2020 - early 2021 time frame caused a lot of the deaths that happened under Biden's early days to be in the category of being completely preventable but a large portion of the country had been fed bullshit for a year that told them to resist every possible preventative measure.
A lot of that is fair, except that it wasn't just Biden's early days. The mishandling of the COVID pandemic continues to this day. It's been a clusterfuck from the beginning under Trump to the present under Biden. The US doesn't seem to be that unique in that regard though. It seems like it's been a clusterfuck around most of the world.
Once the virus went from stable to constantly evolving, there was no chance of eradication.
Trump's early mishandling of the virus and America's outsized influence over the rest of the world helped push the virus this direction long before it was a foregone conclusion that it would be endemic.
Agreed about Trump's mishandling, but I'm not talking eradication. That was bound to be difficult. I'm talking about mitigation, harm reduction. This was essentially completely abandoned by the Biden administration.
I agree that Biden's administration wasn't perfect or even very good in this regard. But like with the Afghanistan withdrawal and other issues his administration was completely set up for failure before they even set foot in office.
The best he was able to do was get the vaccine out to everyone, and to his credit, he accomplished that. Once the vaccines were distributed and everyone who wanted one had gotten a shot, the public appetite for continuing COVID mandates was completely gone.
I think I am probably talking too much about presidents or the public. The key mover was industry the whole time. Industry was willing to hold out until the vaccines were distributed. After that, industry wanted everything "back to normal" ASAP.
They're still fighting for "back to office" mandates to this day.
I think that's still too charitable of an interpretation. The CDC under Biden has been a disaster. They completely dropped any recommendations for masking, requirements for masking in high-risk environments (such as healthcare facilities), or even trying to model good behavior. The CDC director doesn't even wear a mask in crowded environments or photos, and dismisses criticism for this, for crying out loud.
At some point COVID was going endemic. That point was pretty early on in Biden's administration.
Once all of the variants started to emerge, it was going endemic. Once it's endemic it's either mask forever or don't. The mask mandates were never going to last forever, and I think it was reasonable to keep them until the vaccine was distributed to everyone interested in getting it.
I say all of this as someone who masks routinely indoors to this day. Sure, Biden could've continued what became very unpopular COVID controls, or given up on it just like every other country in the world. Even China gave up on "zero COVID" and New Zealanders gave up on it as well.
You do have good points, but even with it going endemic, measures could still be taken to reduce infection, with masks, ventilation, UV lights. I guess what bothers me is that the attitude all of a sudden became "whatever you wanna do". Not even even a recommendation or requirements for healthcare settings. The healthcare settings in particular bother me.
Once it was determined that it was airborne and had become endemic, the mask requirements in those places should have become indefinite. That would also help reduce the spread of various other airborne diseases. As it is now, I keep hearing of doctors and nurses actually harassing patients to take their masks off. Completely batshit insane.
There is no longer any leadership or appropriate guidance from CDC or any other government entity. Sure, China and New Zealand gave up on it too, but as old folks are sometimes fond of saying, you wouldn't jump from a bridge if everyone else did it.
I agree, and the whole thing is a shame.
Part of me wants to think it's just inevitable because industry gets nearly exactly what it wants in this country at all times, but another part of me has a perhaps more hopeful thought which is maybe we could've gotten some of those things if we had organized for them.
Maybe a lot of what's wrong with American policy is that the sane people and the people who want reasonable, good governance of the country just aren't organized enough and just not connected enough to each other.
Despite the likelihood that the million Karen marches at the height of the pandemic for getting haircuts were astroturfing efforts...there was nobody in the public sphere advocating for reason. I understand that it was risky when we didn't know about the properties of the virus and such so the crazies were the only ones risking it. But I don't think this country can have good governance at all until the people who are tired of the crazies organize, unite, and take over.
Do you remember when the media had a fit about Trump being racist for blocking the flights to countries with high covid rates? How about the two weeks after he announced operation warp speed to develop a vaccine and everybody swore up and down that they wouldn't take Trump's vaccine? Trump bears a lot of responsibility for the toxic political culture, but it wasn't just him.
Trump looked like he was going to do the approval for the vaccine himself (or override it). He promised that it'd be ready even sooner than what the organizations making and approving it had said.
As far as "toxic political culture", Trump bears the lion's share of the blame. Before he entered politics, it was not at all normal for politicians to behave like this.