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发帖数: 1 | 1 Biden should stop pretending his resistance to a vax-to-fly rule is about
public health
The decision by federal health officials to cut in half the number of days
for people to quarantine if infected with covid-19 says less about our
understanding of how the coronavirus spreads than the influence of, of all
things, airline lobbyists.
Air carriers clamored for the changes as they canceled thousands of flights
over the holidays amid a staffing shortage caused by crews who needed to
self-isolate for 10 days after testing positive. The guidance issued on
Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — which suggests
five days of quarantine instead of 10 — shows a new willingness to avert
crippling disruptions across society during the busiest travel period in
years.
And it’s all the more remarkable because airlines have for months
successfully thwarted a push by public health experts to require passengers
to show proof of vaccination when they fly. This is maybe the most important
lever that President Biden could pull — and has so far refused to pull —
that might increase the country’s vaccination rate so that hospitals won’t
routinely be overwhelmed with unvaccinated patients.
The same authority that allows Biden to require passengers to wear masks on
domestic flights, which he has extended through March 18, also allows him to
require vaccinations. He told ABC News last Wednesday that he has
considered doing so but has been told by staff that it’s not necessary. “
Even with omicron,” Biden said. “That’s the recommendation I got so far
from the team.”
This is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst. Public health experts
inside and outside government have favored requiring vaccinations to fly
since the summer. In September, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said
that a vaccine mandate for flying might be unnecessary because the
administration’s mandates for employers to require vaccination would be a
more effective way to achieve the same result. But that rule has been put on
hold pending Supreme Court review.
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Biden should stop pretending his resistance to a vax-to-fly rule is about
public health — and not politics. The truth is that requiring vaccines to
fly, even with a testing opt-out, would provoke a backlash. Those who are
vaccinated would be only minimally inconvenienced, if at all. But there
would be horror stories about sympathetic-seeming holdouts who couldn’t,
for example, fly across the country to see their dying parent because they
won’t get the jab. Fox News would have a field day.
And that is true even though only about 62 percent of Americans are fully
vaccinated. It’s understandable that airlines don’t want to get squeezed
into the middle seat between the feds and unvaccinated customers, but the
stakes are too high for the president to capitulate to CEOs. Lest we forget:
The 10 major passenger airlines have received $50 billion from federal
government bailouts during the pandemic, including $13 billion in the
stimulus package Biden himself signed in March.
The companies and their trade associations say checking vaccine cards would
be onerous and logistically difficult and cause delays. But if small
restaurants have figured out how to do it, big airlines — which already do
so for international travelers — certainly can as well. TSA agents could
glance at vaccine cards as they check IDs and boarding passes. Airports can
set up stations right by security for unvaccinated passengers to get
inoculated.
So much of life in covid America turns on facts people don’t want to talk
about. To wit: What the CDC’s new guidance doesn’t tell people who get
infected is that they should take another coronavirus test after five days
of isolation before returning to social settings. The unfortunate reason
this wasn’t included is because there are not enough tests available. That
is another consequence of the Biden administration’s tendency to hope for
the best and plan for the best — rather than preparing for the foreseeable
contingencies caused by the delta and omicron variants.
Biden sounded determined in his address to the nation last week to avoid
using the word “mandate” as he discussed his efforts to increase
vaccination. He prefers gentler words that have softer connotations, such as
“requirements.” The other term Biden has stopped regularly using is “
wartime footing,” which was a staple of his speeches early in the year. It
’s an unfortunate reflection of his desire to move on and not have his
tenure defined by the pandemic. But the virus isn’t done with us.
An average of more than 1,400 Americans continue to die every day from covid
. Preventable as most of these deaths would have been with vaccines, as many
Americans have died from covid during Biden’s presidency as Donald Trump’
s.
That’s why we still need a wartime footing. And more vaccinations. And more
tests. World War II took four years and required a draft to conscript
enough troops to win. We’re two years into another global war. To prevail,
we need to compel all Americans to join the war effort. |
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