Biden’s First Year Ends in Failure with Promises on Covid-19

The broken promises made by President Joe Biden on getting the COVID-19 pandemic under control have come into the spotlight as he’s wrapping up his first year in the White House while the omicron variant rages on across the country.

Although the president has seen a significant drop in his approval ratings in connection to the economy, Biden has usually seen higher ratings with regards to COVID-19. However, this, too, has tanked over the past year. A new ABC News/Ipsos poll saw that 53% approve of the president’s response to the pandemic, which is down from the 69% from when he first took office. This number also comes with a significant drop of support among independents.

This tank in ratings comes as the administration attempts to shift its messaging around the pandemic to focus on hospitalizations and deaths in place of the new number of cases. The seven-day COVID cases average was at 193,002 daily when Biden took office last January. This has decreased in the summer months but surged once again to 240,409 new daily cases on Monday.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, did acknowledge on Friday that the pandemic is unquestionably affecting the president’s approval ratings negatively.

“This is a really tough time in our country,” Psaki said. “We’re still battling COVID and a lot of people thought we’d be through it, including us.”

The president recently said, “the single greatest currency you have is your word.” However, he previously made lofty promises in connection to the pandemic when he was on the campaign trail, and these have yet to come true. Even though he repeatedly promised to “shut down the virus,” the death toll under his watch has gone up compared to the numbers under Trump. This comes even as more people have gotten vaccinated.