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Where the last administration addressed the pandemic with the vernacular of a natural disaster — using the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s mantra of a “federally supported, state managed and locally executed” response — President Joe Biden’s team is borrowing from the Pentagon and the doctrine of overwhelming force.
“We’re at war with this virus,” COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said in an interview with The Associated Press between Sunday morning meetings on the response. “We’re taking every resource and tool the federal government has to battle on every front.”
It’s a strategy facing urgent tests after Biden inherited an inconsistent vaccine distribution plan and with the emerging threats from new virus variants.
The goal, Biden aides say, is as simple as it is ambitious: After a year of being on defense they want to take the fight to the virus — to “overwhelm the problem,” a kind of mantra for the team.
The campaign is being waged in schools and sterile pharmaceutical plants, on the vast blacktop of stadium parking lots and along the sidewalks outside Americans’ homes. To defeat the virus, Biden’s team must oversee a herculean logistical effort to put shots into hundreds of millions of arms, but also overcome vaccine hesitance, politically charged science skepticism and fatigue across all corners of society after nearly a year of hardship.
For Biden, beating back the pandemic is a defining challenge of his presidency, testing his central promise to the American people that he can better manage the outbreak than his predecessor. His team seemingly day by day rolls out an almost dizzying array of new efforts and appeals large and small — everything from building a surgical glove factory in the U.S. by year’s end to asking Americans to wear masks while walking their dogs.
The central question for Biden and his team, one that can’t be answered yet: Will it all add up to enough? ...
