Political Analysis: Biden aims to manage expectations with pandemic amid various uncertainities

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden doesn’t just have to manage the coronavirus pandemic — he also has to manage people’s expectations for how soon the country will come out of it.

And on the latter task, projecting too much optimism can be as risky as offering too little, requiring what one public health expert calls a “necessarily mixed message.”

At every turn, as the Biden administration works to inoculate every adult American, the president is tempering bullish proclamations about the nation’s vaccine supply with warnings about the challenges ahead.

His big announcement Tuesday that there would be enough vaccine for all adults by the end of May, two months earlier than previous predictions, came with a chaser from Biden that it could be a full year before the nation gets back to normal.

But even then, his pledge skated over the idea that while the administration expects to have procured enough vaccine by the end of May, there is no guarantee that all those shots will get into arms by then.

The Biden administration has been moving to scale up capacity to administer vaccines at an ever-faster clip. But by April, administration officials expect supply of the vaccine to outpace demand, requiring increased outreach to persuade hesitant Americans to roll up their sleeves.

Biden’s overarching strategy has been to underpromise and overdeliver, a proven political strategy that comes with reminders that Americans need to remain vigilant as more contagious variants of the virus take hold. ...