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‘There is No Federal Solution’: Biden Makes Admission in War on COVID

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


After nearly a year of heckling then-President Donald Trump as COVID-19 spread around the country and vowing, during the 2020 campaign, that he would eliminate the virus’s threat if he became president, Joe Biden has said what rational Americans have known throughout the pandemic.

Namely, that “there is no federal solution” to it.

“Look, there is no federal solution,” he said on a call to state governors over the weekend. “This gets solved at state level … and that ultimately gets down to where the rubber meets the road, and that’s where the patient is in need of help — or preventing the need for help.”

“My message to the governors is simple: if you need something, say something. We’re going to have your back in any way we can,” he continued.

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The call was the first time Biden joined in for the weekly COVID update that is convened between his team and state leaders, CNN reported, adding that the call — and the president’s comments — come a week after he laid out a plan to ramp up testing and vaccinations.

“The new steps, which included ordering 500 million at-home rapid tests that Americans can obtain for free, came too late to avoid disruptions to winter holiday plans,” CNN noted. “Thousands of flights were canceled as airline staff tested positive. Many Americans downsized their plans amid the viral spread. Biden’s new tests, and the website where Americans can order them, won’t be in place until next month, the White House has said.”

Becker News adds:

Biden admitting that there is no federal solution to the Covid pandemic is a step in the right direction. Free states like Florida and Texas have experienced superior economic and social outcomes to those of lockdown and mask-obsessed states like New York and New Jersey.

New York City, for example, is seeing a massive surge in “cases” despite lockdowns, mask mandates for even the vaccinated, and ‘vaccine passports.’

New-variant omicron infections are spiking in Florida too, but deaths are far below what they were at the height of the pandemic.

That said, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has adopted a “less is more” approach regarding pandemic policies in his state to allow his residents maximum freedom, was attacked in a holiday column by Miami Herald op-ed writer Fabiola Santiago.

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“Last lesson of 2021, Florida: Omicron happens when we act selfishly, like Gov. DeSantis,” she wrote, while also verbally smacking Floridians for “giddily taking risks” such as refusing to socially distance, wear masks, and, for some, take a COVID vaccine.

Santiago specifically blamed the GOP governor for the surge in cases and accused him of not leading the state with “sensible policies” or proper guidance for people who “most need to hear an endorsement of science over quackery from him – the politically reticent to the vaccine.”

“The governor [is]… governing with such authoritarianism that he comes perilously close to Fascism with every move,” Santiago wrote. “So many of us wish he would put politics aside, at least for the coronavirus.”

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“We should all be used to this by now, but who’s going to listen to common sense when the state’s top leader isn’t engaged in prevention — more than 62,300 coronavirus deaths later?” she asked. “Most probably, only the same science-driven crowd that has vaccinated and boosted up.”

She also lambasted Floridians for being “vaccine-stagnant, mask-rejecting” selfish people.

“Omicron is what happens when we act selfishly and reject that we’re interconnected with the rest of the world in our common humanity,” she said. “The me, me, me attitude only heightens our vulnerability to disease.”

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