How will the Omicron variant affect Biden's approval rating?

[DaleCooper]

I'm going to try and be as detached as possible in communicating how I see this affecting Biden, so bear with me and forgive if I seem callous.

Basically, we (the people) are ready to be done with COVID in this country. Unless the virus mutates to the point of having a 3-5% fatality rate for healthy vaccinated people, there's no way that anyone will accept more regulations on the public at large. I don't know what to say (and again, I'm not trying to push my personal stance on this issue, this is just how I interpret the public opinion as I see it), but the American people simply aren't interested in lowering the unvaccinated death rates by a small percentage if it means wearing masks, socially distancing, depriving themselves and their kids of an education and social life, and skipping holidays for the rest of their lives. To put it simply, people are done.

If Biden wants to see his approval rating skyrocket (relative to polarization of course), then he should come out and say that we've made the vaccines available to everyone, boosters are available to everyone, and it's up to everyone to make the right decision on their own. Follow that up with a nice "Merry Christmas!" and never bring up pandemic mitigation efforts again unless it's to comment on the tragic deaths of unvaccinated people and to emphasize the need for vaccinations.

[DaleCooper]

Probably not much change. People are just sick of covid, period. I got my vaccine and put my life on hold for the better part of two years now. We just need to move on with the fact covid will be here from now on. Some of this is getting to the point of ridiculousness. Last week, the WI Health Department told hunters they should wear masks because deer can get covid. I mean, seriously if I get covid from field dressing my deer after being fully vaccinated that would be something else.

If the science has changed so that the vaccines don't work against the new variant, then as awful of a situation as it is, people should be reasonable and understand why more restrictions are necessary. If it just kills the unvaccinated faster, that's a relief but also makes it harder to justify any more restrictions.

I hate to be so defeatist about this, but the lesson here is that if vaccines become useless five months after we get them (and we still have to follow the COVID measures even during those five months), then there's no point in letting COVID dictate our lives anymore. We've clearly lost the battle if that's the case. Don't you realize that if man can't vaccinate against this apparent super-virus, then we will just have to learn to live with it?

Again, I don't believe this is going to happen since we've been getting new variants to fear-monger over for nearly two years now, however, even if it is as you say, most voters will still oppose any more mitigation efforts. If Omicron is the justification for more lockdowns across the globe, then I think we can expect a lot more rioting across the globe.

[DaleCooper]

The longer covid remains ‘a thing’ we will only have one term presidents.

Covid terminated Trump’s presidency.

It will likely terminate Biden’s presidency.

In Biden's case it will have been by choice. There's simply no excuse for the Democratic stance on COVID-19 right now. I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that there are still prominent voices defending lockdowns and universal masking and social distancing policies. If the Democrats had embraced the stance I've been advocating for a while now, they'd have won those offices in Virginia, and New Jersey would've gone much better.