USA: Democrats increasingly support relaxing measures against COVID

Looking ahead to the mid-term elections in U.Swhich will take place in November, there is a notable change in the narrative of the Democrats about the restrictions across the country by the COVID-19— They are now increasingly backing relaxing mandates, responding to growing voter exasperation with the lingering pandemic.

“People are tired,” Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia admitted in the first announcement of his re-election campaign. He said people “wonder when things are going to go back to normal and at the same time don’t know what normal means now.” In the multi-scene video in Georgia, not a single mask is visible.

The Democrats hope that the change in policy will serve to dent the political attacks they have received ahead of the elections at the end of the year – in which control of Congress is at stake – but their calls for a return to normality, both in symbols as in practice, they are putting pressure on President Joe Biden.

More than a year after he came to the presidency on promises to end the pandemic, the persistence of the virus has eroded Biden’s popular approval ratings in an election year in which coronavirus restrictions and Masks are at the forefront of the nation’s ideological wars.

After months of squabbling with Republican governors over getting in the way of public health measures like mask-wearing and social distancing, the sudden reversal by Democrats in recent days has caught White House officials, who now look out of step with their own party.

As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continues to recommend the use of masks indoors in more than 99% of the country, even Democratic states from New York to California began to cancel mandates for citizenship and New Jersey announced plans to lift its mask requirements in schools.

“Some people might call what’s happening ‘the new normal,'” Biden said last month, acknowledging the frustrations. “I call it a work in progress.”

But Biden, even some in his party say, is not moving quickly enough to finish the job. Governors from both parties have asked the federal government for clearer guidelines at a time when COVID-19 is becoming an endemic disease with which we must learn to coexist, much less a public health emergency.

Last week, government officials acknowledged for the first time that they have been working on guidelines for the “next phase” of the pandemic response, but they are weeks away from completion.

“We understand where the emotions of the country are,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said this week. “People are fed up with masks.”

But he stressed that the sentiment is not universal. “If you look at the polls, there is also a large group of people who still want the masks, right? So it’s not even that explicit.”

He added that Biden remains dedicated to his campaign promise to “listen to the scientists, the data.”

White House officials, also eager to return the country to normality, awaited authorization by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the Pfizer vaccine for children under 5 years of age.

With that, there would then be universal coverage with vaccines, which would be added to new therapies and the increasing availability of rapid tests, so that some officials in the White House would have enough arguments to convince the country that the pandemic is finally being left behind. .

However, the FDA on Friday delayed approval of Pfizer’s vaccine for children by several weeks, while the company awaits more data on the effectiveness of a third dose in that group.

Republicans have long criticized Democrats for what they say was prioritizing unnecessarily harsh restrictions to slow the spread of the pandemic, hurting the economy, and for continuing to require the use of masks even when they may not have been medically necessary.

Democratic Governors Association spokesman David Turner said the party’s shift in position has been motivated by the evolution of the virus and not politics, but noted that while Democratic governors have tried to mitigate the effects of the pandemic, many of your fellow Republicans have made things worse by deliberately spreading disinformation about the pandemic and about vaccines.

“I think Democratic governors are going to have a good story to tell about respecting science and facts and listening to public health experts to protect people from the pandemic,” Turner said of the November election. “And there is going to be a narrative to be told about Republicans actively working to prolong it.”

Administration allies have said Biden should at least present a roadmap for a return to normality while he waits for the scientists’ work to be completed, in an acknowledgment of Americans’ exasperation.

According to an AP-NORC poll last month, only 45% of Americans approve of the way Biden has handled the pandemic, down from 66% in July 2021. On Thursday, Biden said the efforts of members of his party itself to relax the restrictions were “probably premature”, although he admitted that it was a difficult situation for the leaders.

White House officials noted that decisions by Democrats to relax mask requirements coincided with a sharp decline in cases, when a two-month surge caused by the omicron variant showed signs of abating.

Despite Biden’s reluctance, top Democratic leaders are applauding the change.

Rep. Sean Patrick Murphy, chairman of the House Democratic Campaign Committee, praised his state’s Democratic governor of New York for relaxing mask rules, tweeting that it was “time to bring people back to life. With science as our guide, we are ready to return to normal.”

The change, however, has come too late to favor the political fortunes of Democrats in some places. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s surprise victory in the fall was fueled by parents furious about mask rules in schools.

Youngkin used an executive order on his first day in office to ban mask mandates in schools, but that move has been stalled by lawsuits in some of the state’s largest school districts. Less than a month later, three Democrats in the Virginia Senate endorsed Youngkin, helping him this week pass a measure that bars public schools from imposing mask requirements on their students.

“We’re telling parents what they can do,” said one of the senators, Joe Morrisey. “And as a legislator, I don’t think I have the audacity to tell them what they can and can’t do.”

In Georgia, Warnock’s campaign ad was in stark contrast to a photo of Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Stacey Abrams days earlier, showing her without a mask in a classroom full of masked children. Abrams’ campaign said she followed health protocols but later deleted the photo amid strong criticism.