Joe Biden’s answer to no COVID test kits during the December 2021 surge was, “I wish I had thought about ordering 500 million tests two months ago” (ABC News, Dec 22, 2021).
Move ahead to 2022. Joe’s answer, “If we’d been better mind readers, I guess we could have,” when asked if his team could have acted sooner to address drastic shortages of baby formula. (CNN, MJ Lee & Maegen Vazquez, May 13, 2022).
October of 2021, a whistleblower alerted officials to “lax practices including regulatory violations” at the Abbott Nutrition Formula plant in Michigan (Politico, H E Evich, Apr 28, 2022). Four infants were hospitalized and two later died after consuming products produced in that plant (CNBC, S Kimball, May 12, 2022). A massive recall followed then the plant closed in February, 2022. In May, NPR reported, “an acute shortage of baby formula in the US.”
Coincidentally, Oct. 22, 2021, experts presented a strategy to overhaul home testing to White House officials. It called for 732 million home tests and was called “Testing Surge to Prevent Holiday COVID Surge.” It was declined. That was two months before Biden wished he could known so he could have ordered home tests (Vanity Fair, K Eban, Dec 23, 2021).
Why didn’t the Biden administration address coming baby formula shortages or COVID home tests by initiating the Defense Production Act? Maybe it’s because their focus was using the Act to ramp up production of minerals for electric vehicle batteries.
It’s never been about mind-reading. A mind reader would be unemployed with Joe and his White House team. It’s all about competence.
Ralph Miller