First, the good news.

Joe Biden’s Christmas Covid speech wasn’t as terrible as it could have been. Still, it was pretty bad. Watching Gramps cough his way through a speech on Covid, weirdly moving between whispering and screaming from a teleprompter was plenty disturbing. 

And we all know why Biden gave a major address in the early afternoon instead of during prime time as normal presidents have in the past.

It’s called sundowners. Google it if you’re unfamiliar

But it could have been worse. He could have mandated proof of vaccines for domestic air travel as some idiots in Congress - Rep. Don Breyer of Virginia, for instance - have been begging for. 

No doubt that’s coming. But not yet.

Now for the bad news: Biden continues to express contempt for those disobedient Americans who haven’t been vaccinated. He also refuses to acknowledge that many of the unvaccinated already had Covid and have natural immunity. Of course others may have valid personal objections to the shots. Attacking them and calling them unpatriotic is revolting and shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the independent American spirit.

Biden also ignores the fact that government health officials have lied and exaggerated throughout the pandemic. This imperious, wrong-headed approach to the pandemic have left many Americans distrustful of the so-called “experts.” 

Biden also experts send anger  for members of the media who question the safety or efficacy of the vaccines, claiming they spread lies and misinformation.

Whatever happened to a free exchange of ideas?

Then there’s this:

Telling the unvaxxed they face a winter of death and illness is a lie, something Biden’s skilled at, but he really ought to stop.

As John Daniel Davidson wrote yesterday in The Federalist, “It’s one of the most bizarre and appalling statements from a presidential administration in American history, breathtaking in its dishonest scapegoating and shocking in its callous disregard for the millions of Americans who have decided, for reasons of their own, not to get the Covid shots.

Bullying these people will not persuade them, and neither will lying about the omicron variant. There’s no evidence right now that omicron is going to bring “severe illness and death,” or that it’s even going to cause a surge in hospitalizations. The evidence so far suggests just the opposite.

In South Africa, where omicron first emerged last month, hospitalization rates have fallen by 91 percent amid the current wave. Just 1.7 percent of all Covid patients were admitted to a hospital in the second week of the omicron surge, compared to 19 percent in the same week of the delta surge, according to South African health officials.

What’s more, the omicron variant appears to be milder than earlier strains of Covid-19. “We are really seeing very small increases in the number of deaths,” said Michelle Groome, head of health surveillance for South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases. Others have also noted a decoupling of new Covid cases and deaths in South Africa, whereas in past surges they have been closely aligned.”

All indications are that the omicron variant is far milder than earlier versions of Covid-19. We should be thankful and celebrating that.

Instead, blue state governors and mayors are panicking, reviving the same draconian measures that failed to slow the last covid spikes.

To sum up the presidential address: If you aren’t vaccinated, you’re going to get sick and die. Merry Christmas.