WSWS | At each of the three press conferences held during Biden’s illness, White House COVID Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha and Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated this statement of surrender to the virus, while stating that all Americans will inevitably be infected with COVID-19.
On July 21, Jean-Pierre stated, “Look, we knew this was going to happen. As Dr. Jha said… at some point, everyone is going to get COVID.” The following day, Dr. Jha said bluntly, “This virus is going to be with us forever.” On Monday, July 25, Jean-Pierre repeated, “As we have said, almost everyone is going to get COVID.” Numerous articles in the bourgeois press and segments on the broadcast news outlets parroted these same talking points.
Finally, on Wednesday Biden tested negative for COVID-19 and ended his isolation. Visibly unwell, coughing repeatedly, his voice still deep from the infection, and stumbling over his words more than usual, Biden gave a lying and cynical 10-minute speech to a group of maskless, cheering staffers in the Rose Garden, in which he portrayed vaccines and Pfizer’s antiviral Paxlovid as magical “tools” that nullify the dangers of perpetual mass viral transmission.
In the course of his speech, Biden referred to God three times and “prayers” once. He made no reference to the rising daily death toll from COVID-19, the impacts of Long COVID, viral evolution, mask mandates, airborne transmission, or other critical concerns about the pandemic raised by leading scientists. On the same day as Biden’s speech, 801 Americans officially died from COVID-19 and the seven-day average of daily new deaths rose to 440, up 67 percent from the trough reached on June 21, while hospitalizations approached 44,000, a three-fold increase in the past three months.
Biden stated early in his speech, “the reality is that BA.5 means many of us are still going to get COVID even if we take the precautions. That doesn’t mean we are—we were doing anything wrong. Unfortunately, this COVID is still with us, as it has been for two and a half years.”
Later, he falsely claimed: “Over the past 18 months, my administration has left no stone unturned in our fight against this pandemic. None. We brought down deaths by nearly 90 percent since I took office because of the help of all the people in this Rose Garden. Businesses and schools responded. Grandparents are hugging their kids and grandkids again.”
In reality, due to the abandonment of mitigation measures during last winter’s Omicron BA.1 surge, the seven-day average of daily new deaths reached 2,654 per day on February 1, 2022, only 13 percent less than the daily death toll when Biden was inaugurated. Despite the roll-out of life-saving vaccines, over 610,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 since Biden took office, 39 percent more deaths than took place under Trump. Over 200,000 parents and grandparent caregivers have been killed by COVID-19 in the US, the majority under Biden, whose relentless pursuit of school reopenings led to mass viral transmission among children and their families.
Biden declared, “You can now prevent most COVID deaths. And that’s because of three free tools my administration has invested in and distributed this past year: booster shots; at-home tests; easy-to-use, effective treatments.” He reiterated this, stating, “You can live without fear by doing what I did: Get boosted, get tested, and get treatment.”
All of Biden’s claims about the pandemic are false and unscientific, meant to serve as soporifics to disarm the public in the face of the looming dangers that lie ahead. His administration’s pragmatic pursuit of a vaccine- and Paxlovid-only strategy, combined with its refusal to stop viral transmission, has set American society on a course towards disaster.
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