The huge stakes of Biden’s new Covid-19 plan

CNN — President Joe Biden is so far as good as his word to “manage the hell” out of the pandemic, driven by urgency to revive a sickened, struggling nation and the certainty that his entire presidency rests on eradicating Covid-19. Until now, it’s been easy for the new President to criticize the Trump administration’s obviously negligent and incompetent response to the worst public health crisis in 100 years. “The idea that you can get up here and talk about what you know, what the evidence, what the science is — let the science speak, it is somewhat of a liberating feeling,” said the government’s top infectious diseases expert, who often clashed with former President Donald Trump’s fantastical alternative realities. Ending the threat from the virus would in turn be the best path to easing the economic disaster after another 900,000 people filed first-time unemployment claims last week, building new pressure on Congress to quickly approve Biden’s $1.9 trillion rescue plan despite Republican concern over its cost. While that rings true given the previous administration’s failure to meet its goal of 20 million people vaccinated by the end of 2020, Fauci on Thursday was less equivocal on this score, saying, “We’re certainly not starting from scratch, because there is activity going on in the distribution.” In any case, announcing that they were starting from square one also appeared to be an effort to manage expectations for Biden and to give his team some time to crank up the new anti-Covid offensive with the virus still spreading out of control.