The Daily Signal - Omicron: What We Do and Don’t Know

Episode Date: December 8, 2021

There is still little data available on the new omicron variant of COVID-19 but that is not stopping some political leaders from implementing new policies and requirements.  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has issued a vaccine mandate for employees across the city. The Biden administration is restricting travel from some nations while heavily promoting COVID-19 booster shots. But what do experts say is the right response to the omicron variant?  Political leaders “shouldn't respond reflexively with the same old, same old tools that haven't worked all that well in the past,” says Doug Badger, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, the parent organization of The Daily Signal. Badger joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss what we do, and do not, know about the new COVID-19 variant and how our elected leaders can respond without restricting freedom.  We also cover these stories:  During a video meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Joe Biden expresses concerns over Russia's intents toward Ukraine.  Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows says he no longer plans to cooperate with a congressional probe into the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. Lawmakers strip from the National Defense Authorization Act a controversial provision that would have required women to register for the military draft. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, December 8th. I'm Doug Blair. And I'm Virginia Allen. How should America's policymakers respond to the new COVID-19 variant? New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has reacted by issuing a vaccine mandate for employees across the city. And the Biden administration is heavily promoting booster shots. But what do experts say the right response should be? Heritage Foundation senior fellow Doug Badger joins the show. today to discuss what we know about the new variant and how our elected leaders can respond without restricting freedoms.

But before we get to Virginia's conversation with Doug Badger, let's hit the top news stories of the day. During a Tuesday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Joe Biden expressed America and her European allies' concerns over the situation in Ukraine. After U.S. intelligence warned of a possible Russian invasion into Ukraine early next year, the two leaders engaged in a more than two-hour video conference to discuss a global response to increased Russian aggression. A White House summary of the call read, President Biden voiced the deep concerns of the United States and our European allies about Russia's escalation of forces surrounding Ukraine

and made clear the U.S. and our allies would respond with strong economic and other measures in the event of military escalation. Here to briefly explain the situation is Research Associate for Russia and Eurasia at the Heritage Foundation, Alexis Marachic. Alexis, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. Can you give us a brief background on Russia's involvement with Ukraine over the past year? Of course. So over the past year, beginning actually in April of this year, Russia began increasing troops along the border of Ukraine.

Of course, this was in addition to the war already going on in Ukraine's eastern Donbos region and Russia's occupation of the Crimean Peninsula. But this buildup of troops, it came out in news reports that there were approximately 100,000 Russian troops along the border, and it looked that Russia could invade at any moment. Russia did not invade and pulled back a few thousand troops and made it appear that it was leaving the border, but in fact it kept most of its troops and equipment there. And slowly over time, the troops have been building back over a number. And now there are more than 90,000 Russian troops back along the border.

And it looks like in the coming weeks or months, Russia could invade Ukraine. So what does this call then indicate about a possible American response to this buildup of troops? So the readout by the White House was pretty vague in talking about the call between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Of course, it said that economic measures could be implemented. So this would be in the form of sanctions or, quote unquote, other measures could be imposed. And this could be, and this is in the form of financial assistance to you. Ukraine to support their military. It could be in the form of the U.S. selling more weapons to Ukraine, and it could, or it could

be the termination of Nord Stream 2, because Nord Stream 2 does threaten Ukraine's energy security. But it's really unsure right now. The White House is keeping this classified right now. Hopefully we'll see a strong response by President Biden if Russia does invade Ukraine, but based on President Biden's track record with Russia, it doesn't seem like he'll be as tough on Russia as he needs to be. So then what does a good response to this buildup of troops look like? A good US response would be us providing financial assistance to Ukraine, selling weapons,

working with Ukraine's intelligence services to provide intelligence in order to support them against Russia. Also working with European and NATO allies to support Ukraine would be great. These are all stronger measures that would be much better than just some strong words against Russia. Excellent. That was Alexis Marachic, a research associate for Russia and Eurasia at the Heritage Foundation. Alexis, thank you so much.

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows says he no longer plans to cooperate with a probe into the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol. In July, the House Select Committee launched a probe into the events of January 6th. Initially, Meadows said he would cooperate with the investigation. But earlier this week, he announced he no longer planned. to work with the committee, as he told Real America's voice. We were trying to reach an accommodation. You and I have talked about this before, reach an accommodation with the committee to share and hopefully illuminate certain non-privileged

items while maintaining the president's claim on executive privilege and protecting that. It's his privilege. I can't waive that and certainly don't want to waive that. I think it'd have a chilling effect on conversations. Meadows says the committee is not honoring former President Donald Trump's executive privilege. Meadows added that the committee also failed to alert him about a subpoena issued to a third-party carrier trying to get information. The former chief of staff said he thinks it is now up to the courts to weigh in as he continues to honor Trump's executive privilege. A controversial provision that would have required women to register for the military draft has been stripped from the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act,

per the Washington Examiner. The move is striking because the provision received bipartisan support in the House and Senate, normally a sign that a provision will remain in a bill. Currently, the Selective Service System, also known as the draft, requires all male U.S. citizens and immigrant non-citizens between 18 and 25 to register with the system within 30. 30 days of their 18th birthday. The proposed provision would have expanded that requirement to all women as well.

Senator Josh Hawley, Republican from Missouri, was pleased with the decision to remove the provision from the bill and said in a statement, it appears that the NDAA will no longer require women to register for the military draft. I certainly hope that is the case. If it is not, then I will keep fighting for a vote on the Senate floor to strip this wrong and misguided provision out of the final bill. but not all Republicans were on board with removing the provision. Florida Republican Congressman Michael Waltz told Politico in a statement,

if it's so grave that we have to go to a draft, we need everybody. We need man, woman, gay, straight, any religion, black, white, brown. We need everybody. All hands on deck. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Doug Badger as we discuss the new Omicron variant and how policymakers should respond to it. The Biden administration has been in power for almost a year. And the radical left has been imposing its dangerous ideology on America. Not only do they want to expand government control and promote cancel culture,

but they also want to rewrite our nation's history. Indoctrinate American students in our public school system. Attack our traditional values of honor, liberty, and justice for all, and implement a Marxist agenda that unleashes socialism throughout our country. Here at the Heritage Foundation, we need your help to finish the year strong and prepare for the battles that lie ahead in 2022. By making a tax-deductible year-end gift right now, you'll help advance your principles, free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values,

and a strong national defense at a time when our nation needs these principles most. Visit heritage.org slash year end to make your tax deductible donation today. How should policymakers respond to the new COVID-19 variant called Omicron? Here with us to answer that question and break down what we know about the variant is Doug Badger, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Doug, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for inviting me. So to begin, let's just talk about what we do and what we actually don't know about

Amogron, because we're hearing a lot. This is a brand new variant. What do we actually know and what's still unknown? Yeah, well, the variant was first reported by South African authorities on November 24th. So as of this recording, scientists have known about this for less than two weeks. So there's very little they know at this point, and a whole lot they don't know. Science does not move at the speed of Twitter. But there are three big questions here that scientists are trying to answer. First, is it more contagious than previous variants? Second, is it more lethal than previous variants?

And then finally, our existing immunities, whether naturally acquired or through vaccines, are those immunities effective against it? Okay. Now, it is pretty common for viruses to mutate, correct? This isn't a major shocker, right? It is not a major shocker, as I'm sure the listeners know, they've been naming these various using letters of the Greek alphabet. Delta, the one that we've been familiar with over the last few months,

is the fourth letter. Amacron is the 15th. So there have been an awful lot of variance in between. This one, though, has captured people's attention for several reasons. First, while we don't know how contagious it is, there had been a lot of indicators that it may be very contagious, perhaps more so than the Delta variant. If you look in South Africa, they went from 200 cases a day in mid-November to more than 10,000 a day on December 6th. largely, apparently the Amokron variant. There was a flight from South Africa. In the Netherlands, 600 passengers, 61 tested positive for the Delta variant when they disembark. So it could very

well be more contagious. Some preliminary indications, though, that it might not cause serious illness. South African health officials say that in the hospitals where in the province where they've had the biggest outbreak, most of the patients don't require oxygen. They're not oxygen dependent, which is very, very different, they say, from previous waves of infection that they've seen. That might be a good sign. And then finally, the issue of whether vaccines are effective against it, don't yet know, but there's some optimism that it may well be. Okay, so we're still waiting to learn on the vaccines. It seems like it's a pretty aggressive variant from early, early data.

But thankfully, it seems like people are not getting too sick from it. So at least we have that good bit of news. But I, you know, I think, Doug, the question that so many people are asking and considering is, you know, we have been in the middle of this pandemic now for nearly two years. And what is the response that we should be getting from our leaders, from our political leaders, from our health officials? How should they be responding to this new variant, given the amount of information that we have about it? But beyond that, the amount of information we have about COVID and, you know, as a society,

have we learned enough of how to deal with the pandemic, with this virus that life can continue, quote, unquote, as normal? Or are there measures that political leaders should be taking? What do you think? Well, at this point, I think it's most appropriate for them to stop and wait and learn a little more about this. Because at this point, as I mentioned, scientists don't really know yet what it is we're dealing with. There's a tendency on the part of governments to pull the same tools out of the existing toolkit, you know, travel restrictions, lockdowns, mandates, and so on and so forth.

The New York governor proclaimed a state of emergency within hours of learning that there was a new variant. She's already talking about canceling non-emergency procedures at some state hospitals. The New York City mayor is wanting to impose vaccination mandates on private companies. All of this because of the Omicron strain. And we don't know yet whether the vaccines are effective against the Omicron strain. So they shouldn't respond reflexively with the same old, same old tools that haven't worked all that well in the past.

They should wait to get more information about this. and they should communicate clearly and dispassionately with people. They need to be honest where they don't know what's going on. They need to convey that there's some uncertainty about what they're learning, and they definitely need not to overreact to it. Well, you mentioned New York City, and as you say, New York City, mayor Bill de Blasio announced that all private businesses, private companies in the Big Apple must require their employees to get vaccinated.

Doug, what are the implications of a mandate like this? Well, I'll skip for now the legal implications. Does the New York City mayor have that authority to put that mandate on private employers? So far, the courts have held that the federal government, federal executive branch agencies do not have that authority. but that raises a little bit of a different question. One of the issues that arises, though, is that we're in a time where there is a labor shortage. People may be waiting longer to get the packages that they've ordered for Christmas

because there are problems in the supply chain. We're seeing inflation. We're seeing various kinds of problems. And one of the dangers of vaccine mandates is that it will make those labor shortage is a little worse. And the people who are most likely caught up in these kinds of issues and these kinds of dilemmas are those who are vaccine resistant. They tend to be lower paid employees, lower wage employees who don't have the option to work remotely. And what we end up doing is losing health care workers, losing, you know, postal workers, losing. You know, postal workers,

other who are absolutely critical to the supply chain and disproportionately affecting people with lower wages, in some cases, members of minority groups, because minorities continue to have a lower vaccination rate than the overall population. And we're also seeing that New York City is requiring kids, ages 5 to 11, to be vaccinated in order to enter restaurant, gyms, places of inter, entertainment, entertainment venues. Doug, what exactly is the purpose of mandating the vaccine for kids? Is there a good reason for that? You know, it's very, very interesting. The FDA had its expert panel last month review whether, in fact, they ought to approve vaccines for kids age

five through 11. And what they found was, as we know, the risk of COVID for healthy kids in that age group is very, very low. And some of the advisors during their debate said, look, we know what's going to happen. We're going to say that it's okay to vaccinate kids five through 11. And then somebody's going to come along and say, oh, well, let's mandate the kids five through 11 be vaccinated. And they wanted to be very clear that they didn't think the mandate was. a very good idea, and they were reluctant to approve it for all kids just because it might

lead to those abuses. Unfortunately, the FDA presented them with all or nothing proposition, either approve it for all kids or approve it for no kids. There are children with pre-existing diseases underlying medical conditions that put them at very high risk of serious illness and death from COVID, those kids probably is a good idea to vaccinate it. But on something like this, that's a close call for most kids, it's a very, very low risk, the vaccine might make it marginally a little bit lower. Those are conversations that parents should have with their kids' doctors. Get individualized medical advice for your child. A mayor, a president, a senator, they can't make they should be making these decisions for other people's kids. These are intensely personal medical

decisions, and they ought to be made between parents and pediatricians. Yeah, it certainly does seem like it would be something that would be very case-by-case. You know, at what point, Doug, as we look at New York City, as we look at President Biden and his proposed vaccine mandates, at what point do we just let Americans live their lives and choose what is best for them to live free from restrictions from mass mandates, vaccine mandates, and so forth. I mean, is there a tipping point here coming? Well, honestly, I think we're pretty much there. People are very aware of this pandemic.

I would venture that more people have heard of the Amopran variant than know that Kamala Harris is vice president of the United States. I mean, that you cannot, whether it's on social media, television, you can't interact with anybody in our society and not know about the fact that this disease is out there and that it's contagious. In my view, some people are making some very unwise decisions not to be vaccinated. For the most part, older people are being vaccinated. CDC tells us that 99.9% of people aged 65 to 74 have gotten at least one dose, and 89% are fully vaccinated, 60% have gotten boosters. So the message has gotten out there to the people most at risk, and I would hope that it's also being heard by people who have

underlying medical conditions that make them more susceptible to serious illness. But, But again, there's a big difference between people being uninformed about the risks and people making decisions for themselves that I may think are unwise and that some of the political leaders may think is unwise, but ultimately is their decision. Well, and we've seen from the Biden administration right now, obviously, his big response, the president's main response to the Omicron variant is promotion of the vaccine, is promotion of booster shots. But we also know with the vaccine mandate, there have been so many lawsuits filed against it, including by the Heritage Foundation. You've mentioned the mandate.

Where exactly do things stand right now with President Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate? Well, they're not faring terribly well in the courts. Now, he's got a whole series of I'm just going to focus on two of them. The first is from the Labor Department, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, which mandates that all companies with at least 100 employees put in place mandates. And then there's one through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, which oversees the Medicare and Medicaid programs, that requires hospitals and other health care facilities to order their employees to get vaccinated. Both of those were to take effect on December 6th.

Both of those are have been enjoined. The federal judges have said no, you cannot enforce this and you can't go forward until we've heard the arguments in the case and make a decision as to whether you have legal authority to do it. So right now, both of those, the two biggest mandates, are not being enforced by the federal government under court order. And appeals of both of those rulings are in progress. Now, if you could sit down with President Biden and with Dr. Fauci as well and talk with them about their response to Amicron, what would you say to them?

How would you advise them for how, as political leaders, they should be leading our country right now? Well, I think the first thing I'd ask Dr. Fauci to do is to apologize for his I represent science remarks. I can tell you, I've tried this at home. My wife doesn't buy it. So forget it. He's a very smart man. He is a world-class expert on infectious diseases, which means he knows that there are a lot of things scientists don't know about this pandemic. I think a little humility would go a long way. toward boosting his credibility among tens of millions of Americans who have just tuned him out. So the president, I might ask him to stop politicizing the pandemic. I mean, he's been a politician for nearly half a century. I don't think there are very many people on the planet who have ever been able to say that.

And so you kind of reflexively take credit for things you didn't do and shift blame for things that you did. And, you know, so he spent his first six months. in office taking credit for the fact that people were getting vaccinated when it was really his predecessor that made all of that possible. And then when cases started to rise over the summer, he immediately started to blame people who disagree with him politically and started accusing unvaccinated people of killing people and so on and so forth. That's fine as a politician. Motivate your base, demonize your political opponents. But as president,

if you're really trying to get people to change their minds about this, you have to be able to persuade them, demeaning them, threatening their jobs. It's just not a good look for a president. And I don't think it accomplishes his stated goals. Are there any countries that you think are responding really well right now to the Omicron variant or who just throughout the pandemic have really handled things you would say very excellently, and maybe we should be taking some notes from. Well, everybody's got some good features and some bad features. One that I think the UK and

Germany got particularly correct was the widespread availability of affordable at-home COVID tests. Our FDA was very slow to approve them. And unlike Operation Warp Speed, with vaccines, the government didn't commit to buying a whole bunch of them. So they're hard to find. They're kind of expensive, really. And so people aren't just going to go out there and test themselves regularly before they get together with others and so forth because of that cost. It really would make an awful lot of sense to make these broadly available, to educate people about their importance and their use. And for them to be able to check themselves, you do a nasal swab and in 15 minutes you find out if you tested positive or negative, they really could be a very important tool

in helping people learn their COVID status and then take appropriate steps by avoiding others and not spreading it. Yeah, I know. I think that testing option is really, really critical to be giving people the access to know quickly right away, whether or not they are positive or not. And I've done those at-home tests, and it gives you a lot of peace of mind. You know, during, when seasons start changing and you think, wait, is this just allergies or do I have COVID? It's great to have that test right away to be able to take. And certainly, we need more on the market, especially as we head into the holiday season. You know, I think so many Americans are fearful that we'll see another lockdown, that we'll see things shut down again.

And we have seen that President Biden has said he does not have plans to issue more lockdowns. Are you confident, Doug, that the president is going to remain true to his word and that we won't see lockdown measures put in place again? Well, I'm not as confident as I'd like to be. And I say that for two reasons. First, he's reversed himself before. Most significantly, he maintained throughout the summer that there would be no vaccine mandate. And all of a sudden, on September 9th, he reversed himself and started issuing all of these mandates that people either get vaccinated or lose their jobs, which in those orders, I believe, are unlawful.

And so far, the courts have agreed. Secondly, he really hasn't shown sufficient regard for the legal limits on his power. Like President Trump, he directed the CDC to put in place a moratorium on evictions. CDC does not have jurisdiction, national jurisdiction, over landlords and tenants. And President Biden, unfortunately, forced it to the point that the Supreme Court was to tell him not once but twice that he couldn't enforce it. Within two weeks after that second and definitive Supreme Court ruling against him, he announces vaccine mandates, which again exceed his legal authority. Now, again, I'm not saying that President Biden is going to try to put

a lockdown in place. I hope he doesn't. But unfortunately, there's the track record that he's compiled over the course of really less than a year means that we can't say definitively that he won't do it. Yeah. Well, Doug, as information continues to come out about Omicron and we continue to learn about really the details of this virus and the vaccine's effectiveness against it, what are platforms where you're getting your information and where you would recommend to our listeners to say, you know, you should be looking at these sites or these news platforms to be getting

information that you can trust because there's obviously so many competing voices right now. Yeah, and I would list first a couple that sort of compile medically related news, which at this point is dominated by COVID-19 as everything else is. There's a website called MedScape. There's Medpage Today and Kaiser Health News. And they will, usually when a new study comes out, new information, you'll see those reported in one or all of those outlets. The second thing I would encourage people to do,

and I know this sounds a little daunting. If you see reference to a study that found X, don't take it at face value. I don't want to insult reporters, but when you read an article about the study, the one thing that's probably true is that the reporter hasn't read that study. Find the hyperlink. Read it. You know, even if you only read the abstract and maybe look through a couple of tables, find out what the authors of the study really said and what they did, not what your favorite Twitter feed or, you know, know, news outlet says the study says.

And then finally, I'd say that there are a couple of people who've written very intelligently and write intelligently almost every day about it. Marty McCarrey of Johns Hopkins University as a substack, and he's very, very, very informative. And Vene Prasad of the University of California in San Francisco, those two, I think, both in addition to being trained in the field of medicine, which can't hurt, also, you know, are very, very substantive and honestly present findings that are coming out daily about this pathogen.

Excellent. Doug Badger, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Doug, thank you so much for your time. and we really appreciate you joining us today. Thank you for having me. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts

and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Virginia Allen and Kate Trinco, sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, please visit DailySignal.com.