Biden Plays Expectations Game on COVID Vaccine

A return to the standard forms of political spin.

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We are far from the destination, but the return to normalcy has begun—and so have the normal games presidents play.

Donald Trump said many times that COVID-19 would just “disappear,” as if it were so much fake news ginned up to help Democrats. At one campaign stop, he railed, “COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. … On Nov. 4, you won’t hear about it anymore.”

Of course, he was wrong about the disease simply vanishing. More than 420,000 Americans have died of COVID-19—surpassing the number of U.S. soldiers who died in combat in both world wars and the Vietnam War combined. (That stark figure is 392,393, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.) And just because the spin from the newly installed Joe Biden White House isn’t as remotely egregious or reality-defying as what many of us became accustomed to over the last four years, “better than Trump” isn’t a standard worth bragging about.

Every new administration likes to reset political expectations. Staff members arrive at their new offices, look at the books and declare, “Dear Lord! It’s so much worse than we ever imagined.” Normally, the calamity being discovered is economic. This time it’s the pandemic.

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  1. Greg Sturges

    Why the constant, knee-jerk throat clearing that Biden is already, obviously, doing better than Trump? Is he? Trump lied about his inauguration crowd size. Biden's people lied by claiming the Trump administration had no vaccine distribution plan. And it was a bad lie too; any minimally informed person knew it to be false.

    I'd request you write "rank punditry" pieces that don't refer to Trump, esp. when it's not necessary. The number of those pieces will increase greatly as the year unfolds. It would please this reader. I assume I'm not alone.

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    Will Bates

    Recognizing, acknoeledging, and acting like CoVID is, in fact, a real thing, and not a hoax perpetrated by the “other” 60% of the electorate, is a significant step in the right direction.

    That is absolutely and emphatically a low bar. But can a guy just take a week to take a deep breath and recognize how much better off we are in this moment?

    However, Jonah is right - that moment is and should be fleeting. I am willing to - and hope others - give Biden the benefit of the doubt for now, one week in, considering his transition team was thwarted by Trump’s thugs until just a few weeks ago.

    But time will tell.

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    EricRemcon@gmail

    It’s nice to return to calling out normal political spin instead of outrageous Orwellian - Doublespeak lies that are spread not only by the corrupt self-centered originator but repeated by members of what used to be called the Republican party.

    Biden may have made the mistake of over promising yesterday by announcing the procurement of an additional 200M doses (for a total of 600M) from Pfizer and Moderna without a signed contract. It seems low risk because their production is ramping up quicker than projected, but he will take the heat if there is a shortage in the summer.

    Also I don’t see those that are critiquing him for under promising (100M shots in 100 days) acknowledging that at some point (hopefully not until fall) we will be bumping up against the anti-vax portion of the population. Whether it is the typical (vaccines aren’t real/safe) crowd or the political crowd (don’t trust T/Biden/government) or the straight up crazy crowd (Bill Gates is implanting microchip trackers) there will be a significant portion that won’t be willing to jump in at first.

    I hope that if the vaccination campaign appears to be going well in the next few months, the right wing media will be able to control themselves and not amplify the inevitable one-off cases where something goes wrong just to sabotage Biden. I’ve already seen a headline (I don’t know if it was serious) stating that ‘Man dies of covid 2 days after vaccine’ not mentioning that he caught it in December. The latest RW media’s development of scapegoating Dr Fauci for vaccine distribution issues is not encouraging. The last thing we need is the anti-vax population to be as big as the political anti-mask population.

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  4. Ben Bobbitt

    In my county, I’ve become frustrated by the total lack of investigatory effort by the local press as to vaccine delays. The local papers and news outlets seem content to simply print the first boilerplate response offered by the health department.

    “We ran out of vaccines.” Ok, why did we run out if the state reports that we’ve only administered 51% of the vaccines that have been distributed?

    “People were turned away after hours of waiting in line at the vaccination site, even though they had confirmed appointments because more people showed up than anticipated.” Ok, why did more people show up than anticipated when it is by appointment only?

    This is basic reporting that I would hope your average college paper reporter would actually follow up on, yet this is all we are getting. I realize that being a local news reporter isn't exactly a path to riches these days, but surely somewhere in these newsrooms there are adults who can explain the notion of a follow up question.

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      Josh Dukelow

      I would suggest that asking a follow up question and getting a useful answer are two very different things. The lack of information in public reports can result from either factor. Maybe they aren't asking, or maybe they are and they aren't getting any answers.

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      1. Ben Bobbitt

        Fair point, but I would submit that it should be reported that the question was asked and not answered so as to make that clear.

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    Mark Badger

    Obfuscation and misrepresentation to avoid accountability? We've already returned to political normalcy.

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    Scarlette Tarte

    Mr Goldberg, returning to "normal spin" is wonderful.

    As for Biden, he is doing a solid job so far. In the normal ways for a president to act. That he cannot get the other half of the country to go along with the idea of mobilizing is not his fault, but their dumb fault. I am perfectly willing to do what I can to help get people vaccinated. If Biden asks for volunteers, there are millions of us out here ready to do so.

    The Republicans are a problem. They were and continue to be, and will continue to be. Let's keep our focus where it matters right now...squarely on the party causing the country almost every single problem we have.

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    1. Dr. Joe

      That third paragraph is frightening. Reminds me of polls two years ago in which nearly one-fifth of respondents in each party agreed with the proposition that the country would be better off if most of the people in the other party died. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/opinion/hate-politics.html

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        Aylene Wright

        At least she said *almost* every single problem we have.

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    2. Joe1776

      Lots of elderly republicans who would like the vaccine can not get it for political reasons.

      https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations.html

      The slots are full with frontline workers who may not have any risk factors. This decision was made due to racial demographics.

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        Idontdocute

        The day you can go to work and have to wear a shield, goggles, N95 + face mask and head cover to keep the copious spraying pulmonary mucus from being coughed onto your face and hair is the day you can tell me and mine that we don’t have risk factors.

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        1. Joe1776

          At risk of dying from it not just at risk of getting it.

          I am not saying health care workers involved in treating people with Covid shouldn't get priority but they expand it way beyond that.
          https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations/hcp.html

          Moreover now the people who are at risk of dying from it have their slots filled with someone who might be more at risk of dying from the flu just because they work in these jobs:
          "Frontline essential workers such as fire fighters, police officers, corrections officers, food and agricultural workers, United States Postal Service workers, manufacturing workers, grocery store workers, public transit workers, and those who work in the educational sector (teachers, support staff, and daycare workers.)"

          It is a shame that all the science says most lives would be saved if we vaccinated the elderly but we just ignore that for politics.

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          1. Jess

            It’s not just politics but also economics. I say this as someone who is frustrated that my elderly parents can’t get a shot in MA, but they are retired and can stay safe and wait for their turn. We don’t desperately need the elderly to go out and get the market economy going again.

            Also, results of Covid are not binary. Many people have varying levels of disability post Covid.

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        Cornelius O’Brien

        So elderly Democrats, Libertarians, Socialists, Greens and independents can get it? I'll tell my mom.

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        1. Joe1776

          Yeah I imagine your mom may not have been able to get a vaccine because the cdc devalued her life for political correctness.

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            Cornelius O’Brien

            You have quite an imagination

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    Mark Lange

    In my opinion, absolutely no comparison to four years ago. One week in, grammatically complete sentences have been publicly stated by a non-narcissist who embraces science in the interest of helping a nation. The other was embroiled in asinine declarations about crowd sizes. This is leadership, not "Trump normalcy"

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    David Atkinson

    Why hasn't the Biden Administration stated clearly that the whole "65 and up" recommendation from the CDC be treated as a flexible suggestion and not as a concrete edict? Stories about vaccine crews trying to vaccinate eligible citizens, and when they can't find enough that meet the criteria and the timer is ticking down as the thawed vaccine gets closer to being unusable, that they are tossing it rather than finding ANY person who wants it are very troubling.

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      Aylene Wright

      AFAIK that kind of thing is more an issue with state / local regulations than federal ones.

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    The Bell Tower

    Pettifogging is the most under appreciated word in the English language.

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    Kenton A. Hoover

    “ And we will never have a true return to normalcy until the pandemic is behind us.”

    Unfortunately, what you are describing seems entirely normal.

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