McConnell: Democrats Have Little to Show for 11 Months Running Pandemic Response
‘The coronavirus will not simply disappear. Angry speeches about vaccines are not a strategy. Democrats must quit the distractions, get focused, and move toward a future where the coronavirus is not a perpetual crisis, but a fact of life that we manage and mitigate. More and cheaper tests. More and better treatments. More vaccinations, but with unity, not bitter rhetoric. No more lockdowns. And no more Big Labor veto over children’s in-person educations.’
LOUISVILLE, KY – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) released the following statement today regarding the Biden Administration and COVID-19:
“Every American is rooting for our country in the continued fight against COVID-19. But 11 months into the Biden Administration, we need an honest accounting.
“In 2020, then-candidate Biden promised he would ‘shut down the virus.’ Now new cases in our major cities are breaking records. When the virus had killed 220,000 Americans, then-candidate Biden said ‘anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain as President of the United States.’ Now we have lost 800,000 and counting.
“Last week, Vice President Harris said their Administration was surprised and caught off guard by new variants such as delta and omicron. But new variants were public knowledge before this Administration took office.
“Democrats’ springtime ‘rescue plan’ spent just 9% on the health fight and 91% on other issues. The Biden Administration has also taken hundreds of millions of dollars from COVID testing and the Strategic National Stockpile and diverted it to their border crisis.
“As a result, eleven months into this Administration, we are still woefully short on rapid and affordable testing. Americans seeking tests before the holidays are facing massive lines and empty shelves.
“Eleven months in, we are still short on important treatments such as monoclonal antibodies.
“Eleven months in, a promising new antiviral pill was only belatedly approved today by the FDA and the Biden Administration preordered too little, too late.
“Eleven months in, with a predictable seasonal surge threatening hospitals, the Administration has inexplicably only just begun releasing funding that Congress set aside for health providers.
“Months ago, Senate Republicans wrote the Biden Administration asking why they were limiting important treatments and if they had any plans to guard against future variants. They never responded.
“Washington Democrats spent 2021 chasing unrelated far-left ambitions and largely sleepwalking through the pandemic.
“A million Americans per day were getting vaccinated before President Biden took office. What new tools have Democrats added to the fantastic vaccines they inherited? Where is their sequel to Operation Warp Speed? What do they have to show for 11 months?
“I continue to urge everyone to take advantage of the safe and effective vaccines which the Biden Administration inherited. They offer fantastic protection against hospitalization and death.
“At the same time, it is clear that vaccines will not completely halt transmission or new variants.
“This makes it even more unacceptable that the Biden Administration is only producing illegal mandates and angry, confrontational speeches about vaccines. This Administration’s careless and confusing rhetoric has stoked an avoidable culture war around these lifesaving tools which they inherited.
“The coronavirus will not simply disappear. Angry speeches about vaccines are not a strategy.
“Democrats must quit the distractions, get focused, and move toward a future where the coronavirus is not a perpetual crisis, but a fact of life that we manage and mitigate. More and cheaper tests. More and better treatments. More vaccinations, but with unity, not bitter rhetoric. No more lockdowns. And no more Big Labor veto over children’s in-person educations.”
Related Issues: COVID-19
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