WASHINGTON — “People are tired,” Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock says in the opening ad for his reelection campaign.
There’s not a face mask to be seen in the Democrat’s video montage of scenes across Georgia, as he goes on to say that people are “wondering when things will get back to normal, and at the same time not knowing what normal even means anymore.”
The ad reflects a shifting narrative on COVID-19 restrictions across the country: Democrats are now increasingly supportive of easing mandates as they struggle to address voter frustration with the lingering pandemic.
They’re hoping a shift in policy could serve to blunt incoming political attacks, with the midterm elections — when control of Congress is at stake — less than nine months away. But their appeals for a return to normalcy are putting new pressure on President Joe Biden.
More than a year after he was sworn into office pledging to bring about an end to the pandemic, the virus’ persistence has taken a toll on Biden’s approval in the midterm election year as COVID-19 restrictions and mask-wearing requirements move to the forefront of the nation’s culture wars.
After months of sparring with Republican governors for standing in the way of public health measures like masks and social distancing, the sudden shift on the part of Democrats in recent days has caught White House officials off guard and left them seemingly out of sync with their own party.
While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to recommend indoor masking in more than 99 percent of the country, even Democratic states from New York to California began easing mandates for the public, and New Jersey announced plans to roll back its face-covering requirement in schools.
“Some people may call what’s happening now ‘the new normal,’” Biden said last month, acknowledging the frustrations. “I call it a job not yet finished.”
Yet Biden, even some members of his own party contend, isn’t moving swiftly enough to finish the job. Governors in both parties have appealed to the federal government for new, clearer guidelines as COVID-19 becomes endemic and less of a public health emergency.
Administration officials for the first time last week allowed that they have been working on new guidelines for the “next phase” of the pandemic response, but those guidelines are still weeks away.
“We understand where the emotions of the country are,” press secretary Jen Psaki said last week. “People are tired of masks.”
She said Biden remains committed to his promise, stretching back to the campaign, to “listen to scientists, listen to data.”
White House officials, themselves eager to see the country get back to normal, looked forward to the Food and Drug Administration’s expected authorization of the Pfizer vaccine for the youngest children. With what would then be universal coverage for the shots, new therapeutics and increasingly available rapid tests, the administration believed it would have the tools to sell the country on putting the pandemic in the past.
But the FDA on Friday slowed the approval of the Pfizer shot by weeks as the company awaits more data on the effectiveness of a third booster dose in the youngest children.
