Overs

(Scott Johnson)

The pandemic is not over yet, according to the new Biden administration Covid czar Ashish Jha speaking on FOX News Sunday and elsewhere this morning. Although his manner is not grating, the message is infuriating.

Also infuriating is the lack of follow-up questions. We don’t expect any better of such Democratic enforcers as George Stephanopoulos (below), but on FOX News Sunday Mike Emanuel was equally lame while Jha blathered liberally on the various Coronavirus fronts including this one (video here).

Emanuel seems to think “Do you understand Covid fatigue” is a challenging question, whereas it is the perfect cue to keep the fog machine rolling with soothing background noise. Surely Emanuel could do better with a little preparation.

We long ago concluded that it’s not going away and we’re going to have to live with it — certain of Jha’s comments to Emanuel imply as much — yet they are perfectly happy to keep it up, as is evident in Jha’s comments to Stephanopoulos. When will they be content to warn those at risk and let us look out for ourselves?

In the words of the song, on the twelfth of never. Or in the words of another song (Paul Simon’s “Overs”): “Why don’t we stop foolin’ ourselves? The game is over, over, over.”

Quotable quote (Jha on FOX News Sunday in response to Emanuel’s question, my transcription): “I totally understand Covid fatigue. I think we all have it, right, and we all wish this thing was over and we could put it behind us. Certainly if you’re vaccinated and boosted it’s going to make an enormous difference going forward and that is essential for people to do, but at the end of the day we’re going to have to continue watching what the virus does, responding to it. I will remind all of us. We are in so much of a better shape than we were even a year ago, let alone two years ago. So while that fatigue is there and I totally feel it and appreciate it, we’re making substantial progress and we just gotta keep going.”