The Biden Covid Plan: More Vaccine Mandates and Testing

On Thursday, President Biden will deliver remarks outlining a new six-step approach to combat the scourge of Covid-19 and slow any further spread. From this standpoint, it would appear too little, too late, to curb the already raging numbers of infections across the county. It’s akin to putting the genie back in the bottle with more vaccine mandates, stemming from federal and private employer mandates, and more access to testing for K-12 schools to prevent outbreaks before they occur.

There is also the question of the timing of this announcement. Since the Biden administration’s failure in Afghanistan, it has been working hard to change the message. Getting back to the Covid fight is a better direction since there are more things to be done domestically and people like to think the President is “doing something” about the country’s problems.

None of the Biden Covid-19 plan steps are inherently bad in and of themselves, but they aren’t offering much more than is already being done or has been done around the country for nearly a year now. Mask mandates don’t tend to work as well as politicians think they should because the people who wear masks are the ones already doing so voluntarily. Mandating masks doesn’t move the needle much for individuals who are not prone to wear them regardless of a mandate.

According to Reuters, the plan will focus on several specific areas, all of which have had plenty of lip service already over the past 18 months:

In a speech, Biden will focus on six areas, including new plans to get more people vaccinated, enhancing protection for those who already have had shots and keeping schools open, according to a White House official.

The speech would also cover increasing testing and mask-wearing, protecting an economic recovery from the pandemic-induced recession and improving healthcare for people infected with the disease, the official said.

The federal government, and by extension President Biden, cannot mandate individuals receive a Covid vaccine, as was confirmed by a question to White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki. Those issues are left to states, and in those instances, left for specific purposes such as a condition of attending public school, for example. In that regard, there could be a more forceful push for school districts to require a jab for students in age ranges currently approved for vaccination.

In lieu of school vaccine mandates, which would be exponentially controversial, there will be a strong push for K-12 schools, according to NBC News, to implement weekly testing of staff, teachers, and students. The testing would be paid for by some $10 billion in funding which has already been allocated but has gone largely unused:

their schools for students, teachers and staff consistent with CDC guidance," the official said.

3. This is ptc important for elementary kids. Important to understand that many schools are NOT DOING THIS.

Or they're doing it wrong. IE only testing symptomatic or only staff.

— Heidi Przybyla (@HeidiReports) September 9, 2021

A brief outline has been provided by a White House official giving us a little more insight into what the plan will contain:

According to a White House official, the president’s plan will include six areas of focus: vaccinating the unvaccinated; furthering protection for the vaccinated; keeping schools safely open; increasing testing and requiring masking; protecting the economy’s recovery; and improving care for those with COVID-19.

As reported on Thursday by CNN, the President’s plan will include an executive order that all federal workers, and contractors, be vaccinated, with no option for regular testing as an opt-out:

Among the steps the President will take is signing an executive order requiring all federal workers be vaccinated against Covid-19, with no option of being regularly tested to opt out of the requirement, according to a source familiar with the plans.

The President will also sign an executive order directing the same standard be extended to employees of contractors who do business with the federal government. The Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Indian Health Service and National Institutes of Health will also complete their previously announced vaccination requirements, which the White House estimates covers 2.5 million workers.

The best the Biden administration can do directly is force federal works to receive vaccinations and heavily lean on private employers to insist on the same. Now that at least the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA Covid vaccine is fully FDA-approved, those mandates will be easier to implement and defend, though no less controversial. Furthermore, can the mandates apply to vaccines that are not fully FDA-approved, such as Moderna or Johnson & Johnson?

If the formal goal of the plan is to try and provide a roadmap for the pandemic to officially “end,” it’s hard to see how that happens with mandates from the White House. Unless and until individuals deem the threat from Covid-19 to be no more or less than seasonal influenza or a common cold, the constant upheaval of life will remain.

Joe Biden inherited Covid-19, from China, as did President Trump, but Biden has failed to find any new or better ways to deal with the spread beyond the things already being done. The vaccines, which certainly provide help to great numbers of people, especially the elderly, have proven to be an imperfect tool. With the advent of the Delta Covid variant, vaccinated individuals are able to catch and spread the virus as well, meaning the vaccine is providing protection for many people, but not outright immunity.

Only time will tell if Biden’s new Covid-19 plan will make a substantive difference or simply serve to placate the public perception that the government should be doing more to fight the virus.

This story has been updated as new information becomes available