Joe Biden inherited a country deeply divided over the coronavirus. A country where public health measures as simple as wearing a mask and social distancing have become symbols of political party affiliation. It’s a divide that may prove a significant blockage to the president’s roadmap to recovery.
“Biden speaks to the aspiration of unity, and it’s nice to hope for that, but the pandemic has been understood by much of the country through deeply polarized and politicized lenses,” said Wendy Parmet, a professor of law and public policy at Northeastern University.
The Covid-19 death toll has now passed 429,000 in the US and the virus, ignored – or worse – by his predecessor, is Biden’s top priority. Polarization around Covid-19 health policies has not stopped Biden from making significant promises to improve the federal response.On his first day in office, Biden signed executive orders mandating masks on federal property and when traveling on planes, buses and trains.“This is not a political statement. This is about the health of our families and economic recovery of our country,” said Jeff Zients, the Biden administration’s Covid-19 response coordinator, of the mandates. The next day, Biden released a 200-page
detailing his administration’s plan to fight the virus, including increasing mask usage and ramping up testing.
Many health officials and public health experts are relieved to see federal guidance on Covid-19 health measures after months of confusing and often contradictory information from the Trump administration. But even if the new administration has a clear vision of the exit from the pandemic, the responsibility to implement public health measures is shared with state leaders, some of whom have become accustomed to seeing measures against the virus as a threat to their political party.
As soon as Biden was declared winner of the election in November, a handful of red-state governors – some who refused to acknowledge that Biden won the presidency until weeks later – said they would not heed to his calls for tighter public health measures, like universal masking, even as Covid-19 cases were soaring in their states.
“[If Biden] approaches me about a mask mandate, I would not be going along with a mask mandate,” Nebraska’s governor, Pete Ricketts, said during a
in November.
