Biden Team Sees Virus Vow at Risk on New Strain, Vaccine Stumble

(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden’s team is increasingly worried the coronavirus pandemic is spiraling out of control — imperiling his promise to contain the outbreak — as cases and deaths mount, vaccinations lag and a more-transmissible strain emerges in the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter. As they learned more about the federal response to the pandemic, Biden’s transition team grew alarmed at a lack of coordination with states, the people said. Biden himself has warned of a “dark winter” and has flatly said the pandemic will worsen before it improves.

The stakes are escalating. U.S. hospitalizations are at near-record levels, and daily cases and deaths have doubled since Election Day on Nov. 3. While blame has fallen on the Trump administration for its failure to develop a national testing or vaccination strategy or encourage widespread mask-wearing, Biden’s team — which keeps adding new experts — now inherits the job of containing the pandemic. Nick Bit: I wish it was as easy as they think. It will take a ugly mask with the properfilter and strict isolation as in total lock down.

On Thursday, Biden will sign executive actions to “move aggressively to change the course of the Covid-19 crisis and safely re-open schools and businesses, including by taking action to mitigate spread through expanding testing, protecting workers, and establishing clear public health standards,” according to a memo by Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff. After taking office on Wednesday, one of Biden’s first acts was expected to be an order requiring face masks on federal property.

The most alarming developments have come over the past month. Some Biden advisers, who asked not to be identified discussing internal conversations, said it isn’t vaccine logistics that worry them most, but the new strain of the virus, which is more contagious.

The U.S. already has a perilously high baseline caseload — about 230,000 new infections a day, of late — that could quickly become unmanageable as the mutant strain takes hold. “This administration is inheriting such a horrible problem, not of their making,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and a member of the coronavirus advisory board for Biden’s transition. “This is a perfect storm.” Biden has staked much of his early presidency on achievements in his first 100 days, including a pledge to administer 100 million doses of vaccine and a challenge to Americans to routinely wear masks. His team hopes to vastly increase testing and push to reopen schools, trying to both do more to fight the virus and return Americans to a more normal daily life.

But the risk of explosive new strains, including a U.K. variant known as B.1.1.7, threatens to upend it all and leave Biden at the end of his first 100 days with a pandemic that has worsened, instead of improved. There’s concern among his team that the scope of the problem he’s inherited is far worse than anticipated, posing a political risk to Biden’s White House.If the new president fails to combat the virus effectively in his first few months, efforts to revive the economy or achieve other legislative priorities including an immigration overhaul or infrastructure development could be hamstrung. Biden’s aides privately allege that Trump’s administration dragged its heels in showing them details of the federal response and its data. Those concerns weren’t made public before the inauguration because Biden’s team believed it had to avoid publicly criticizing Trump’s team during the transition or risk being fully frozen out, people familiar with the matter said. The first days of the administration will be spent getting up to speed on the state of the response, one person said. A senior Trump administration official disputed that any information had been withheld from Biden’s transition, saying that since late November, there had been more than 300 meetings with Biden officials across the Department of Health and Human Services. The Trump administration also provided Biden’s team what the official said was unprecedented access to several “deliberative meetings,” as well as debriefings for some of them. On election day, the U.S. had never had a day with more than 100,000 new cases; since Nov. 5, it has never had a day with fewer than that. Osterholm predicted that the U.S. could see 400,000 to 500,000 daily new cases in 12 to 14 weeks, or roughly 100 days — five times higher than on election day.

“When this B.1.1.7 takes off, it’s going to be hell,” Osterholm said. “That’s what they’re walking into right now. I hope I’m wrong. God, I hope I’m wrong.”

In their planning, Biden advisers are also factoring in an exhausted, demoralized and bare-bones workforce in its departmental agencies, particularly at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Biden is coming in with entire offices gutted, or morale is so low,” said Kavita Patel, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution, who served as director of policy for the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement in Barack Obama’s administration. Vaccinations have fallen far short of targets set by President Donald Trump, who promised in September to have 100 million shots available by the end of the year. Just 16 million doses had been administered as of Wednesday, according to the Bloomberg vaccine tracker. The rising urgency is reflected in Biden’s own approach — during the transition he named a coronavirus advisory board, then a health team, and then a new batch of aides to bolster his response to the pandemic. Key positions remain unfilled, chiefly Food and Drug Administration commissioner. The vaccines work, though new strains threaten to degrade their efficacy. And one adviser wondered whether Biden’s public emphasis on mask-wearing and other sound public health practices would help, replacing Trump’s refusal to wear a mask and general scorn for recommended health guidelines. Nick Note: World wide infections and deaths are approaching records. 50 million people have been vaccinated and isolation and mask wearing is at record amounts. Even Israel where 40% of the population has been vaccineated is seeing records. Something is wrong…. And its the B,1,1,7 strain. A paper mask is a sick joke… It takes a ugly mask. And 6foot distancing is useless it takes isolation. Whats going on… Simple the drug companies want to clear out current vaccine production before they admit to you they need to modify their RNA strands to attack this new mutation. But you can listen to who you please. After all your life is in your hands. What you do does matter.