Team Biden has to be looking at internal poll numbers and dying inside.

The guy who ran on “shutting down the virus” has utterly and completely failed, and they know it. And the Biden administration also knows that they are about to have their proverbial faces rubbed in that promise come the November midterms.

Just how bad are those poll numbers? As Shelby wrote, California is letting its mask mandate expire because Newsom can see which way the political winds are blowing. But on top of that, blue states like Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Oregon are all lifting their SCHOOL mask mandates. Wait, just last week this was a terrible and awful and horrible thing when Governor Youngkin of Virginia wanted masking to be optional in Virginia public schools. Behold the power of the magic “D” after one’s name!

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont recommended Monday that the state end the statewide mask mandate on Feb. 28 — the earliest date of the three states.”

After the state mandate is lifted, the Democratic governor said it would be up to local leaders, like mayors or superintendents, to make their own decisions on mask requirements.”

“Today with boosters, given vaccines, given the N95 masks, you are in a better position to keep yourself safe,” Lamont said at a press conference.”

The Garden State will lift its mask mandate in schools for both students and employees beginning on March 7, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday morning, though districts will still be able to require masking to control any spikes in infections. The news was first reported by The New York Times.”

“Balancing public health with getting back to some semblance of normalcy is not easy. But we can responsibly take this step due to declining COVID numbers and growth in vaccinations,” Murphy said in a tweet.”

Oregon and Delaware will lift their school mask mandates on March 31st. If this narrative isn’t giving you whiplash, I don’t know what to tell you.

1 week ago: Youngkin is a knuckle-dragging idiot endangering children by ending mask mandates

*Dems get internal polling on COVID policies

Today: It's time to end mask mandates, it's just the right thing to do

Amazing how that happens huh?

— Will Ricciardella (@WillRicci) February 8, 2022

So, how will the Biden administration dig themselves out of this COVID hole, now that Democrat governors are looking to ditch mandates and save their political hides? Because, after all, it would look too nakedly political to just start backing off. They need a REASON.

Or just a recount.

The Biden administration is working on recalculating the number of Covid-19 hospitalizations in the U.S., according to two senior officials familiar with the matter.”

A task force comprised of scientists and data specialists at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working with hospitals nationwide to improve Covid-19 reporting. The group is asking hospitals to report numbers of patients who go to the facility because they have Covid-19 and separate those from individuals who go in for other reasons and test positive after being admitted, the two officials said.”

The administration’s goal is to get a more accurate sense of Covid-19’s impact across the country and whether the virus is causing severe disease. Senior Biden health officials have increasingly relied on hospitalization numbers, rather than case counts, to determine how to respond to the virus as well as the efficacy of the vaccines. Lower hospitalization rates could inform the administration’s thinking on public health measures such as masking. More accurate Covid-19 numbers also could provide a better picture of the strain on hospitals and which resources they might need during surges.”

Translation: “We need an out! We gotta recount so that we can justify letting everyone out!”

And notice who tried this first?

The Trump administration launched a similar effort at the height of the pandemic in 2020. While some hospital networks have changed how they input Covid-19 admissions since then, many have not been able to consistently separate individuals who arrive at the facility for non-Covid reasons — for example, for a heart problem or a broken leg — and those who test positive for the virus upon arrival. The two senior Biden officials said the process of getting every hospital in the country to report accurately will likely take several months.”

Yes, yet another thing that the Trump administration tried to do, that suddenly the Biden administration wants done. And getting the hospitals to recount and re-anaylze their numbers will take months. How many months? Enough months to, oh, I don’t know, provide a poll number boost in October?

And you know who Democrats will credit for the new numbers? BIDEN. They’re already starting that narrative!!!

I demand to see the memo that Ron Klain sent out yesterday morning.

Or, at the very least, the polling numbers. https://t.co/xtesAgJQ8A

— Max (@MaxNordau) February 8, 2022

This is nothing more than a political effort to reframe the COVID narrative so that Biden and the Democrats don’t get absolutely pounded into the ground come November. If the total death count can be reduced, then Biden gets to brag on that AND justify letting go of mandates that are obviously unpopular, in order to save face before the midterms.

However, the problem for Team Biden won’t be letting go of the mask mandates and COVID restrictions. It will be convincing the voters who they have scared out of their minds to let go of those same mandates and restrictions. Good luck with that. Many of them are happy to sit on their couches for the indefinite future and see no problem with it at all.

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