President Joe Biden agreed with several Republican governors on Monday that there is no definitive COVID-19 response, Fox News reported.
The comments come as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have attempted to enact sweeping federal orders in an effort to mitigate the pandemic, including employer vaccine mandates.
The OSHA rule, which require private businesses with more than 100 employees to require vaccination or weekly testing, will be heard by the Supreme Court soon, according to Fox.
At a meeting on Monday, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, chair of the National Governors Association, urged Biden to consider federalism in his administration’s COVID-19 mitigation policy.
”One word of concern or encouragement for your team is that as you look towards federal solutions that will help alleviate the challenge, make sure that we do not let federal solutions stand in the way of state solutions,” said Hutchinson, a Republican.
”The production of 500 million rapid tests that will be distributed by the federal government is great, but obviously, that dries up the supply chain for the solutions that we might offer as governor.”
Biden quickly responded that ”there is no federal solution” to COVID-19.
”This gets solved at the state level,” he added.
The president then invoked New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, as an example of someone he has talked to regarding state authority over COVID policy.
”I’m looking at Governor Sununu on the board here. He talks about that a lot,” Biden said.
Biden added that the omicron variant was a ”source of concern” but that it should not be considered a ”source of panic.”
”This is not like March of 2020, the beginning of the pandemic,” he said. ”We’re prepared, and we know what it takes to save lives, protect people and keep schools and businesses open.”
Story cited here.
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