Biden's One-Pandemic-Fits-All Approach

February 22, 2022

The White House has extended the national emergency in response to the COVID pandemic "beyond March 1, 2022." President Biden, who promised to "shut down the virus," will celebrate the second birthday of "two weeks to slow the spread" by pretending most people haven't resumed business as usual. Meanwhile, the disease is screeching to a halt, as every available metric -- cases, hospitalizations, deaths -- plummets. Washington, D.C. may also screech to a halt, as the U.S. Freedom Convoy piles in next week to protest ongoing, unwarranted restrictions. "I don't understand why he's doing it," exclaimed Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) on "Washington Watch."

Even some of the strictest Democratic governors have recognized the impending end of the pandemic and are rolling back restrictions and inching towards normalcy. But not the White House. "Two years [ago], there was so much we didn't know about the coronavirus, but we've earned an awful lot," Johnson noted. "One of the things we've learned is this isn't going to go away." We also know who is most at risk, how the illness progresses, and how to treat it -- not to mention developing and widely distributing three vaccines in record time. Yet the Biden administration refuses to suggest a possible condition to end the emergency.

Two years is too long to struggle with remote or hybrid work, virtual "school," perpetual masking, constant health screening, and rapidly evolving restrictions. America's social fabric has unraveled before our eyes as we've experienced a breakdown in social trust, unruly airline passengers, fiery protests, a mob at the capitol, two partisan impeachments, and an unbearable regime of online censorship. "Does the president expect to keep America in a perpetual state of emergency?" Johnson asked. America needs a break.

America also needs to return healthcare to the hands of doctors. Johnson suggested "the biggest blunder" in America's COVID response was how "the administration, the agencies, big pharma, the legacy media, big tech, social media giants -- the COVID cartel -- has prevented and sabotaged early treatment," potentially costing "hundreds of thousands of... lives."

Instead, the Biden administration seems to be pursuing the increasingly unrealistic and absurd objective of 100 percent vaccination. And it chose to pursue that strategy by deceiving the public, deriding reasonable objections, and punishing anyone who distrusted the brand-new drugs. Even the progressive opinion-setter New York Times reported that the CDC hid vaccination data, because, an official said, "they might be misinterpreted as the vaccines being ineffective." In other words, a reasonable person would interpret the data as showing that vaccines are ineffective, but the prefix "mis-" dismisses that conclusion because it would violate their preferred (that is, the only permitted) narrative.

There may be cases where the vaccine does more harm than good, although by now we all know that suggesting such an obvious possibility would provoke instinctive outrage in many friends and relatives. A January study found unexpectedly high rates of the heart condition myocarditis reported in vaccinated teenage boys, who are at practically no risk of severe infection from COVID. And yet the COVID cartel is ramping up the pressure to force all children to be vaccinated, with one outlet insisting "vaccine refusal is child abuse."

Johnson insists doctors, not bureaucrats, must have the final say. "I'm personally affected," he said, "by doctors practicing medicine," who saved his daughter's life with an experimental procedure 38 years ago. That's why he introduced the Right to Treat Act, which would provide doctors latitude in prescribing any fully FDA-approved drug, even off-label. "Twenty to 25 percent of all prescriptions are prescribed off-label.... The federal government should not interfere."