ANALYSIS: Biden Said He’d Shut Down The Virus. Now The Pandemic Has No End In Sight

President Joe Biden said almost one year ago he’d “shut down the virus, not the country.” Eight months into his presidency, the Delta variant is still surging across America, and members of his administration seem unwilling to move on from pandemic life.

Biden’s remarks came in an October 2020 presidential debate with former President Donald Trump. Trump, a staunch opponent of pandemic lockdowns, had presented a contrast with Biden on how they’d handle the pandemic going forward. Biden’s assertion that America could “walk and chew gum at the same time” by reopening the economy while defeating the virus hasn’t come to fruition, and that rhetoric hasn’t echoed by his administration in 2021.