Source: United States Senator for Wyoming John Barrasso
Biden’s COVID Messaging Is Muddy and Mandates Make Things Worse
By John Barrasso, M.D.
Oct. 6, 2021
Fox News
President Biden explicitly campaigned on shutting down the coronavirus pandemic. As a doctor, it’s disturbing to see that under this administration, the opposite has happened.
New infections were four times higher this past Labor Day than they were on Labor Day 2020. More than 200,000 Americans have died of coronavirus since Joe Biden took office. This is despite the United States administering 389 million shots of coronavirus vaccine, with 55 percent of our population fully vaccinated.
Faced with these facts, President Biden has angrily defended his record. His attitude toward Americans is aggressive and overbearing.
We share the goal of wanting Americans to get vaccinated. Yet the president has explicitly blamed the unvaccinated for the enduring pandemic. His divisive approach is based on coercion, not persuasion.
I practiced medicine for more than two decades. Doctors get better outcomes educating patients, not barking orders. President Biden’s own administration shares in the blame for the faltering vaccination effort.
The administration’s messaging has veered between muddled and malpractice. The start-stop guidance on vaccine approval, mask wearing, and mandates have all harmed the push to get more Americans vaccinated.
Vaccine hesitancy isn’t new. Coronavirus vaccines got their turn when then-Senator Kamala Harris publicly poured doubt on a shot approved under the former administration. Presidential candidate Biden expressed the same skepticism.
Yet when the administration took office, they had a winning hand. Safe and effective vaccines were being administered at a rate of a million shots every day.
Mistakes by this administration began early. In April, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paused the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for ten days to investigate an incredibly rare side effect of blood clots. There were 15 cases identified out of eight million shots given.
This vaccine was important since it required just one shot and could be stored in normal refrigerators. It was the best way to provide protection for people less likely to get two shots, three weeks apart.
Very little information was shared with the public, and confidence in that vaccine never recovered after the pause was lifted. Just eight percent of vaccinated Americans took the single shot solution, and an untold number were put off vaccination altogether.
The mixed messaging reemerged in August, when the White House began touting a plan to give booster shots to the vaccinated. Yet before the plan could be put into action, the FDA recommended that boosters only be given to senior citizens and those in high-risk groups.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has now endorsed booster shots for workers at high risk of exposure. The data support booster shots. The bumpy rollout of the plan means the message to the public is far from clear.
Many view the CDC skeptically due to their mask guidance. On May 13, CDC said fully vaccinated people were safe to go without a mask. In July, they backtracked and said vaccinated people need to wear masks indoors, even if only 0.05 percent of their county’s population tested positive for coronavirus in the previous week. Currently this covers almost the entire country.
Flip-flops by the Biden administration have led to a great sense of confusion. As a result, many now simply ignore public health guidance.
The new vaccine mandate on federal employees and large companies has compounded the problem. It’s entirely the wrong approach to vaccine hesitancy.
For months, President Biden told Americans he wouldn’t do this. Yet when case numbers spiked to an average of 150,000 a week, the administration suddenly imposed a strict national mandate.
This muddied the waters even further. The mandate created the impression that vaccinated people remain at grave risk from coronavirus. Many people now see no benefit in getting the vaccine.
The president’s message ought to be simple: vaccines work.
The message should also be that these vaccines are safe, effective against severe illness and death, and lead to freedom from coronavirus restrictions.
If we want to see the remaining 70 million eligible Americans vaccinated against this disease, the president needs to change minds, not issue mandates.
Above all, the administration needs to stick to the science, even and especially when it’s not politically convenient.
The Biden administration has the tools they need to fight the pandemic. The White House lacks a message beyond angry finger-pointing. We can get past this deadly pandemic if we send a clear message to the American people: vaccines work.
John Barrasso represents Wyoming in the United States Senate, and is a medical doctor.
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