Biden's Speech -- Late in the Game, But Spot-on

 

I did not watch Joe Biden's COVID speech, but I did read the transcript and the six-

point plan at the White House website.  

It all looks good, although it would have been much better to start a lot of this before the disease got this bad.

Obviously, the announcement of a mandate for all employers over 100 employees to require either vaccine or negative test has gotten the most attention.  But that is by no means the entirety of what Biden is proposing.

Most importantly, at least from my perspective, is that he has finally acknowledge that vaccines alone will not beat the delta variant, and that we need to increase testing and treatment.  In particular, he promised to use the Defense Production Act to increase test production and to increase production of monoclonal antibodies and train medical personnel in their use. I had wondered what sort of production we have now and what is feasible, and the website contained an answer.  We are currently producing 100,000 doses of monoclonal antibodies per week, and Biden plans to increase production by 50%.  That would mean 150,000 doses per week.  Currently we are having that many new cases diagnosed per day.  Thus Biden's plans do not come anywhere close to making monoclonal antibodies routine treatment for infection. The treatment will be available, at most, to one in seven new cases.  On the other hand, increased vaccination, testing, and quarantining, if done right (a major assumption, I admit) can reduce the total number of infections and thus allow a greater percentage of infected people to be treated.  

Maybe I am being optimistic here, but I don't even see the Republican uproar about employer mandates as all that bad.  To be clear, I am not impressed by people seeing political upside because such mandates are popular.  Once the uproar gains momentum and the issue becomes yet another culture war battleground, I have no doubt the mandate will become unpopular.  

Own those libs!

But I am optimistic that the uproar over the vaccine mandate will take the focus off testing and treatment and make them less of culture war issues.  After all, Republicans passionately oppose any sort of lockdown or restriction in activity to stop contagion. When masks became an alternative to lockdowns, Republicans came out against masking.  And once vaccines became an alternative to either, Republicans came out against vaccines, or at least against requiring vaccines.  So why not come out against testing while you are at it?  But if testing is less something liberals are trying to force over and more something that is just becoming more and more available in drugstores everywhere, maybe it can avoid being a culture war issue.  (OK, that is very optimistic).

And when even what medication to use to treat COVID becomes a culture war issue, maybe we can hope the medication that cured Donald Trump and is being pitched by Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott can manage to avoid controversy.

Hey, I can dream.