Bill Sheridan

President Biden swooped into office like some kind of superhero on promises to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic in a way that ex-President Trump could not. But instead, he actually rode in on the coattails of the successes made by the Trump administration in fast-tracking the vaccines, but otherwise has failed miserably.

It seems that President Biden is showing the exact kind of “lack of leadership” on COVID that he so often accused former president Trump of. In particular, the feds’ sudden, evidence-ignoring 10-day suspension of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine did serious damage in terms of vaccine hesitancy. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll just found that 20 percent of unvaccinated adults changed their minds about getting the vaccine when they heard about the pause. Doubt was even stronger in some demographics — 39 percent of Hispanic women said halting the J&J shot changed their views.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration put the pause on J&J after learning of just six cases of serious blood clots among the 7 million Americans who’d gotten the jab.

Biden’s critics say that the decision to pause was not based on science but extremely risk-averse bureaucrats who chose to ignore the overwhelming benefits to the public for the remote fear that they might be criticized.

President Donald Trump’s critics said the approval of even a single vaccine by the end of 2020 would be a miracle, but Operation Warp Speed delivered two approved shots with a third on the way — in good part because Team Trump sat on the bureaucrats to prevent this exact kind of deadly foolishness.

Biden has shown that he has other priorities echoing the liberal agenda. On the day that the J&J pause was announced, the president didn’t even bother to try to allay any fears the halt might cause.

Instead, he gave two public addresses, one at a congressional tribute to a slain Capitol Police officer and one in the Oval Office before his meeting with Congressional Black Caucus members — on a favorite liberal subject, “equity.”

“When we took office,” he said, “I signed the executive order — every single aspect of our government, including every agency, has, as a primary focus, dealing with equity. Not a joke.”

During his campaign, Biden said his top priority would be the COVID crisis — it is largely what got him elected. However, as it’s turned out, he has instead chosen to focus on issues near and dear to the liberal base.

After Biden’s remarks, a reporter asked him about the J&J pause — giving him a chance to show leadership and calm the nation’s nerves over the vax.

That’s what UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson did when the European Union panicked over a similar blood-clot issue with AstraZeneca’s vaccine, urging all to heed the advice of the UK regulator, which rightly said the shot’s benefits far outweighed the risks. “The best thing of all is to vaccinate our population, get everybody out getting the jab, that’s the key thing, and that’s what I would advocate, number one,” he declared.

In grim contrast, Biden punted with a typically barely comprehensible response, “My message to the American people on the vaccine is — I told you all: I made sure we have 600 million doses of the MR — not of either Johnson & Johnson and/or AstraZeneca. So there’s enough vaccine that is basically 100 percent unquestionable for every single, solitary American.”

The nation’s top leader actually suggested one of the FDA-approved vaccines was “questionable.” No wonder confidence in all the shots has dropped.