Biden on Omicron: We Were Prepared/We Didn’t See it Coming

From the story: Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic — and 11 months and a day since he took office — President Biden insisted, “I don’t think anybody anticipated” the dramatic surge in the more infectious Omicron variant amid criticism of his response as lagging. “It all started all of a sudden,” Biden claimed Tuesday when pressed by reporters on his administration’s sluggish response to nationwide coronavirus testing shortages. But moments later, Biden contradicted that claim, saying he did foresee the looming test shortage and that he had been working on a still-vague plan to distribute 500 million rapid tests to Americans by mail. “I knew that was coming,” he followed up — even though the details of that plan remained undecided Tuesday (NY Post).  From Rich Lowry: Biden: It’s not a failure that we don’t have more tests—because this covid surge came on so fast… Does that make any sense? Would anyone accept that explanation from Trump? (Twitter).  From Tom Cotton: The Biden Administration had time to write a whole-of-government 42-page “national gender strategy.” But they didn’t have time to work on increasing test availability until now? (Twitter).  From the Wall Street Journal: At long last, a sense of reality seems to be settling in at the White House that we will have to live with Covid-19, even if President Biden didn’t say so explicitly in his speech Tuesday. He can’t “shut down the virus” as he claimed in the campaign. But at least he isn’t shutting down the economy or schools. Mr. Biden was at pains to say Tuesday that this is no time to panic, even as the Omicron variant spreads. He advised Americans not to abandon their holiday plans if they’re vaccinated, though he repeated his dire warning about the unvaccinated. He even offered a grace note to Donald Trump for producing the vaccines, which must be a first (WSJ).