Biden Administration Plays off Crushing COVID Restrictions as 'Tools in Our Tool Belt,' Tells Americans They're Likely Coming Soon
The creeping tendrils of Biden administration edicts soon will be surrounding American society.
The White House on Friday sent an unmistakable signal that Americans soon will be learning the three Rs of rules, regulations and restrictions.
The day after ordering federal workers to get vaccinated or face a grueling testing regimen, President Joe Biden said Americans “in all probability” will see more rules, according to a White House transcript of comments he made to the media Friday from the South Lawn.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insisted the goal is not a lockdown.
“The way we see this is that we have the tools in our tool belt to fight this — this variant,” she said, adding that “we are not going to head towards a lockdown.”
“Our goal is to make sure that we are not headed towards that. That is not going to be the direction that we take, because we have the tools to prevent that,” Jean-Pierre said, referencing vaccinations.
Rochelle Walensky, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was asked Friday by Fox News host Bret Baier about whether a federal vaccine mandate might be in the offing.
“That’s something that I think the administration is looking into. It’s something that I think we are looking to see approval of from the vaccine,” Walensky said.
“Overall, I think in general, I am all for more vaccination. But I have nothing further to say on that except that we are looking into those policies.”
The CDC announced Tuesday that vaccinated people should start wearing masks indoors again amid rising infection rates, most notably from the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
Walensky’s comments Friday on Fox News stirred a buzz that she sought to nip.
.@BerkeleyJr To clarify: There will be no nationwide mandate. I was referring to mandates by private institutions and portions of the federal government. There will be no federal mandate.
— Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH (@CDCDirector) July 30, 2021
“There will be no nationwide mandate. I was referring to mandates by private institutions and portions of the federal government. There will be no federal mandate,” she tweeted.
As the Biden administration sought to find how much regulation Americans would swallow, a cautionary tale emerged from France, where thousands of protesters took to the streets over the nation’s vaccine passport system.
Protests have broken out across France against vaccine passports
They are chanting “Liberté! Liberté!”
Some of the groups are calling themselves the French Resistance pic.twitter.com/ZZEO5RPVSb
— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) July 31, 2021
Hager Ameur, 37, quit her job and said the French vaccine passports, which will be required as of Aug. 9, are a form of “blackmail.”
“I think that we mustn’t be told what to do,” she said, according to KIMT-TV. “And now, suddenly, we are told that if we don’t get vaccinated, it is our fault that people are contaminated. I think it is sickening.”
But in New York City, many restaurants are requiring proof of vaccination if you want to eat, according to The New York Times.
“For us, it’s really just a preventive measure to make our employees and our diners feel safer,” said Patricia Howard, owner of Dame restaurant in Greenwich Village, who requires diners bring their proof with them.
“This seems like one way we could take control, fight back a little bit and protect our space in a very attainable way,” she added.
Danny Meyer, chief executive of Union Square Hospitality Group, which manages restaurants in New York City and Washington, D.C., said that as of next month, customers will either need to flash a vaccine passport or a vaccine card.
“I just do not want to see our business or our city turn back to where we were last summer,” he told the Times.
“We have an answer, and this is what the answer is, and it’s vaccines.”
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