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WASHINGTON – The White House used Friday’s news of nearly a million jobs created throughout July to say that notions of a potential rollback from a pandemic are greatly exaggerated.
“We are not in March 2020,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a press conference on Friday, addressing fears that the wave of COVID-19 cases caused by Delta which Currently rampant in the country only sees the return of crippling restrictions. “Or even January 2021. We are not going to lock down our economy or our schools because our country is in a much stronger position than when we took office.”
The report of US employers adding 943,000 jobs provided a welcome cornerstone as President Biden left Washington to spend the weekend at his home in Delaware. It has been a week since infection rates rose, mask culture wars returned, and Americans wondered what happened to a battle that seemed like it was won just a few weeks ago.
Vaccines against the coronavirus were becoming widely available by the time Biden took office. In total, 193 million Americans have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine (two of three vaccines approved in the United States require two doses), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The unemployment rate now stands at 5.4 percent; when the pandemic first struck and businesses closed, that rate rose to 14.8% in April 2020. The economic recovery began under then-President Donald Trump, but Biden made a ‘a more in-depth return to normalcy a centerpiece of his presidency.
The more transmissible Delta variant has frustrated the White House, leading to questions about whether Biden was premature to declare his “independence” from the coronavirus last month. While Delta’s arrival in the United States was not unexpected – the strain had circulated throughout India and the United Kingdom during the winter and spring – it appeared to land with greater force than expected. , rapidly exploiting low-vaccination areas of the country, including the Midwest and Southeast.
Suddenly, the United States records 100,000 new infections per day, ten times more than at the end of June. Amazon told employees this week that they won’t have to return to their offices until January 2022, a move that will likely be replicated by other companies and could continue to starve urban centers of commuters.
And there are renewed concerns that schools may revert to distance education, especially in states where governors have banned masks in schools. It could also cripple the economic recovery, forcing parents to reorient work schedules in order to monitor how their children, especially younger ones, learn online. It is believed that the burden of distance learning fell mainly on women, who left the workforce in much greater numbers than men.
Still, the Biden administration insists it is not alarmed, even as it takes increasingly aggressive measures to pressure refractories to get vaccinated. Despite reports of rare breakthrough infections, COVID-19 vaccines are very effective in preventing serious illness and death.
As she has done before, Psaki said the Biden administration “has been preparing like Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts for this moment.” Delta is changing rapidly and some believe the current peak could subside in a matter of weeks. Although they remain highly politicized, masks are also very effective in eliminating Delta’s main benefit: its increased transmissibility.
The masks have therefore returned to many parts of the country, including the briefing room where Psaki answered questions from reporters.
“We will not be going back,” she vowed. “We are not going back. “
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