Joe Biden won the presidency last year in large measure by hiding in his Delaware basement and blaming Donald Trump for every single COVID death while undermining trust in any potential vaccine. As of Election Day, there were roughly 230,000 American deaths from or with the coronavirus. There have been more COVID deaths in 2021 than in 2020, though still more under Trump’s administration than Biden’s. What does all this say about Biden’s leadership?

Perhaps he’ll tell us this afternoon in his latest speech regarding the virus and specifically the new Omicron variant, the first American case of which has been detected in a mildly symptomatic and fully vaccinated individual (with two, not three, shots) in San Francisco who just returned from South Africa last week.

Dr. Anthony “I Am the Science” Fauci responded to this news by declaring that “if we had the overwhelming majority of the people in this country vaccinated and those who needed to be boosted, boosted, our vulnerability would be much less than it is now.”

To be clear, a vaccinated person has Omicron and Fauci thinks that proves his case that this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Science.

As for Biden, he plans to tighten restrictions on international travel, including testing requirements. He won’t consider more lockdowns … “for now.”

There are myriad examples of the Leftmedia using one particular talking point to discuss Omicron: “threat.” That sure doesn’t jibe with the White House telling people not to panic. In a “Think” piece for NBC, political analyst Lincoln Mitchell says he’s not sure it’s time to panic over Omicron just yet, but he’s very sure he can blame right-wingers for the continuing pandemic:

To a great extent, in its current form, the problems raised by Covid are political in nature. During Biden’s time in office, the primary obstacle regarding Covid is not the disease itself but the anti-vaccination and anti-mask movements that have been embraced by the Republican Party, particularly at the state and local levels. To be sure, not all of those who oppose vaccinations are right-wing or Republicans, but the overwhelming majority are, and the driving political force behind the anti-vaccination movement is the right-wing.

As we alluded to in the opening paragraph, it was Democrats who politicized the development of the vaccine, swearing they wouldn’t take anything Trump had a hand in creating. When Biden was elected, suddenly they became pro-vaccine to the point of demanding and then mandating it lest the unclean be branded a human virus plaguing society. Leftists simultaneously denounced any treatments for COVID they decided were disfavored, while their Big Tech jackboots banned any discussion of those treatments.

Is it any wonder that a few of Trump’s 74 million voters might then begin to question the vaccine being so transparently politically promoted by a man they saw as an illegitimate victor in the first place? Or the general policies of Democrats whose aim turned from defeating Trump at all costs to boosting their own power once acquired?

The best we can tell, the vaccines do reduce spread and severity of symptoms, and they’re generally a good idea for those without natural immunity, but their effectiveness evidently wanes over time and they are far from the miracle they were initially hoped to be. There are legitimate reasons for people to freely opt out.

Biden, Mitchell, and other leftists routinely knock conservatives for, as Mitchell puts it, “undercut[ting] the best scientific guidance” and “opposing mask and vaccine mandates.” But the actual science on masks is at best inconclusive and, as noted, vaccines are not foolproof. Mandating either is anti-Liberty and anti-American. Leftists want the U.S. to look more like Australia.

Beyond that, the actual statistical evidence belies their claims. There is no discernible rhyme or reason to the spread. Red states and blue states are mixed all the way down the list of most-affected to least-affected, and lockdowns and mandates seem to have little obvious effect on the rate of infections nationwide.

In our book, that’s a powerful argument against draconian protocols. If they’re not clearly working, why submit to them?

National Review’s Philip Klein agrees. “This whole discussion rests on a fundamentally flawed premise: the idea that we need to be waiting with bated breath for the results of current Omicron studies to determine whether we can go on with our lives,” he writes. “In reality, the Omicron variant demonstrates that COVID-19 is not going to disappear anytime soon. We should recalibrate based on that assumption.”

Presidents do set policies that impact Americans’ health, but no president can stop a virus. The Washington Post, for one, goes to near-Herculean efforts to paint Biden’s efforts as a success compared to Trump’s bungling. The truth is more complicated.

Trump allowed himself to become the poster child of COVID misery in large part due to his own typically erratic handling of policy and comment. But Biden has failed by his own standard. He promised to corral the virus and declared “independence” from it for Independence Day. More than 10 months into his presidency, he hasn’t succeeded. In fact, he’s made it worse by so grossly politicizing everything about this pandemic.