The Biden administration’s recent travel ban on south African nations is a ploy to appear to be doing something about the omicron coronavirus variant, according to Washington Examiner editor-in-chief Hugo Gurdon.
Gurdon blasted the administration’s “unnecessary panic” over the new variant after the first case was discovered in the United States on Wednesday in a Californian who recently returned from a trip in South Africa. Gurdon pointed out that when one rearranges the letters in the word “omicron,” it becomes “moronic,” which he said is an “apt description of what the Biden administration’s response has been.”
“This follows a pattern of the Biden administration taking action to give the impression that they’re doing something meaningful, but in fact, it’s used to cover up drift and incompetence,” Gurdon told Fox Report Weekend on Sunday. “If there is a need for a travel ban, it’s a life and death question. If that’s the case, you don’t wait four days before you impose the ban.”
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He also pointed out that President Joe Biden criticized then-President Donald Trump’s travel bans in the early days of the pandemic as “xenophobic.”
“One of the things we should be pointing out is not just the incompetence but the hypocrisy,” he said. “When the last administration put in travel bans and we knew a great deal less about viruses, President Biden accused the Trump administration of racism and xenophobia, and that’s the go-to tactic of Democrats when they want to criticize Republicans.”
Gurdon said Biden should not have promised something he can’t deliver, noting the administration cannot force people to get vaccinated to the extent the president wants.
“If you’re not going to be able to do it, then don’t claim that you’re going to get it done,” he said. “What’s happened now is there’s a big gap between what President Biden said he would do and what he’s managed to do.”
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The first COVID-19 case identified as the omicron strain was confirmed Wednesday in California, and a second case was detected in Minnesota Thursday.
The mutated virus was discovered last week in South Africa and has since been identified in Europe and elsewhere. The Biden administration restricted travel from several countries in southern Africa in response, and government officials have suggested more protocols may be implemented to prevent viral transmission.
