US President Joe Biden on Sunday celebrated Independence Day with an upbeat assessment of a nation he said is roaring back to post-pandemic life, even if COVID-19 has yet to be fully “vanquished.”
Speaking before a festive crowd of 1,000 guests on the White House South Lawn, Biden drew a comparison between the declaration of independence from Britain in 1776 and today’s rapid recovery from the pandemic.
“Two-hundred-and-forty-five years ago, we declared our independence from a distant king. Today, we are closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus,” Biden told the crowd of invited military personnel and essential workers.
Photo: AFP
“We’ve gained the upper hand against this virus,” the president said, but added: “Don’t get me wrong: COVID-19 has not been vanquished. We all know powerful variants have emerged, like the Delta variant” of SARS-CoV-2.
Biden paid tribute to those who had lost their lives, with the number of deaths in the US at 605,526, but he struck an overwhelmingly optimistic note, suggesting that under his leadership the nation — bitterly and at times violently divided under the administration of former US president Donald Trump — is “coming back together.”
“Over the last year, we have lived through some of our darkest days,” Biden said. “We are about to see our brightest future.”
Large crowds packed the National Mall for a huge fireworks display in yet another sign that the US was looking to its July 4 holiday as a moment to put the pandemic in the rear-view mirror.
During last year’s holiday, with the pandemic near its summer peak and towns across the US reeling from protests against racism and the police, Washington and other big cities held only muted celebrations.
Despite the atmosphere of Sunday’s victory party, the Biden administration says it is concerned about the large numbers of people who have still not been vaccinated.
The heavily promoted White House goal of getting seven in 10 adults their first shot by Independence Day narrowly failed, and when it comes to full vaccinations, only 46 percent of Americans have received two doses.
That lag comes as the highly contagious Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 continues to spread.
Hospitals are starting to fill up again, especially in Utah, Missouri, Arkansas and Wyoming. US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci on Sunday told NBC that unvaccinated people now account for 99.2 percent of COVID-19 deaths.
The fireworks smoke will have barely cleared before Biden has to return to a complex political fight for the survival of his legislative agenda this summer.
Negotiations continue on a bipartisan infrastructure deal and fractious debate within his Democratic Party looms on a much broader spending package that has no support from Republicans.
The president visited a cherry farm in Michigan on Saturday to tout a positive employment report hailed as a sign of economic resurgence.
In his speech on the White House South Lawn, Biden said that the US was on the move again.
“We’re seeing record job creation and record economic growth — the best in four decades and, I might add, the best in the world.”
The Biden administration also sent Cabinet secretaries and other officials to sports events, cookouts and festivals nationwide as part of its “America’s Back Together” celebration, while the White House — at least outwardly — continues to brim with confidence. Six in 10 respondents in a poll by the Washington Post and ABC News gave Biden positive ratings for his handling of the pandemic.
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