NY Times: “Biden Promised To Follow The Science, But, Rather Lied”

Of course, being the NY Times, the writers have soft shoed their criticism, have mitigated it, have gone easy. Now, just image if they were writing this about Donald Trump: how harsh would they be? They sure wouldn’t be writing “he gets ahead of the science”, it would be “Trump is going against the science, putting Americans in danger” or something

Biden Promised to Follow the Science. But Sometimes, He Gets Ahead of the Experts.

As he announced on Friday that booster shots would be available to some Americans, President Biden made a prediction: His administration was likely to soon provide third doses of the vaccine “across the board” to anyone who wanted one.

“In the near term, we’re probably going to open this up,” he told reporters in remarks from the State Dining Room at the White House.

But that assessment — a politically popular one in a country where most people vaccinated against the coronavirus say they are eager for a booster — was the latest example of how Mr. Biden and some of his team have been ahead of the nation’s top public health scientists, who have emphatically said in recent days that there is simply not enough evidence to suggest that boosters are necessary for the entire American population.

Yeah, they’d be ripping Trump and his people for playing scientists.

In fact, two panels of scientists — one for the Food and Drug Administration and the other for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — voted in recent days against recommending boosters for everyone after fierce public debates streamed online.

The president’s Friday remarks were the second time in two months that he had suggested boosters would be available to everyone. And they were issued on the same day that Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the C.D.C. director and one of the president’s political appointees, came under fire for allowing boosters for a broader group of people than her agency’s own immunization panel recommended.

Taken together, the announcements by Mr. Biden and Dr. Walensky did not sit well with all of the scientists who advise them, raising questions about the president’s pledge to always “follow the science” as he fought the pandemic. While some of them credited the C.D.C. director for charting a course through uncertain waters, others warned that politics had intruded on scientific decisions — something that Mr. Biden had promised to avoid after the blatant pressures seen during the Trump administration.

Oh, Biden isn’t really doing the pressure thing, he’s just ignoring the the scientists and medical professionals

White House officials insist that the president is doing just that, and they dismiss criticism that his comments about the additional doses amount to undue pressure on the government’s public health experts. They say that the discussion about boosters was initiated by the government’s top doctors and that he made it clear from the beginning that any decision by the administration would be subject to independent review and approval.

Who? They didn’t really name them.

On Thursday, the panel voted to recommend boosters for older adults and those with underlying health issues. But it advised against allowing frontline workers like teachers and nurses who have already been vaccinated to get a booster shot.

In a decision announced early Friday morning, Dr. Walensky rejected that last recommendation and said that the C.D.C. would allow the frontline workers to receive boosters. In a briefing for reporters later on Friday, she defended the move, noting that the panel was sharply divided on the issue.

That’s a political decision. Why teachers? Those in retail interact with the public way more than teachers, who are typically around the same students every day. I received the email from the NC Health Dept last night about the booster, but, I am not eligible. Now, again, imagine this happening under Trump. The NY Times would sound more like Tucker Carlson….actually, they’d be a hell of a lot more critical. And the Times might have mentioned people resigning

(Fox News) Last month, for those of you keeping track, the Biden administration announced a plan to give additional shots of COVID vaccine — so-called boosters — to millions of Americans. Didn’t see that coming. But the administration never explained why it was necessary or scientifically justifiable. They never bothered. Instead, with characteristic aggression, they simply decreed it was going to happen. The new shots would go out, they informed us, no later than this week, the week of September 20, which is right now. That was the deadline.

The weird thing is, it turned out, no one had told the scientists about this. Two leading vaccine experts at the FDA promptly resigned. Several more announced they were thinking of quitting. Then Biden’s “COVID czar,” a former Facebook board member with no medical background called Jeff Zients, assured the country “no problem, none of this is cause for alarm.” People resigning in protest, no big deal.

The decision to give extra COVID shots, Zeints said, was “made by and announced by the nation’s leading public health officials.”

Really? Which leading public health officials exactly? Well, Zients didn’t tell us. It’s clear something was going on here. Then last week, the entire lie unraveled completely. A panel of the FDA’s vaccine experts — actual “leading public health officials” — blew up the whole idea in a single afternoon. By a vote of 16 to 2 – not close at all — they emphatically rejected Biden’s plan for more shots. For a moment, this seemed like a rare win for science, and for public safety. That decision said a former FDA official, quote, “put the FDA back in the driver’s seat” and “maintained the FDA’s scientific independence” from politicians.

But just for a minute. Because in Joe Biden’s America, there is no independence from politicians. Shortly after midnight on Thursday, the college professor who Biden appointed to run the CDC, Rochelle Wolensky, simply overruled the FDA panel. She didn’t cite any scientific basis for her overruling actual scientists. She just did it. And she did it because she can do it, because she’s in power and you’re not.

Look, I’m not against a booster shot, if it’s necessary. Is it necessary? Is that what the science actually says? Or, is that what the politicians say? They’ve tried it in Israel, and, so far, it hasn’t worked too well, and they’re even thinking of a 2nd booster shot. If the science would say that it increased in the efficiency of the vaccine, I’m 100% ready to get it. There are several shots, such as for smallpox, where kids get 4-5 shots to make it almost 100% effective. Then they never need them again. We just don’t have the science. We do have politics.