President Joe Biden strolled out of the White House with a triumphant demeanour – notably without wearing a mask.

He declared the country on the precipice of defeating a pandemic that has killed more than 580,000 Americans, damaged the economy and been the single-most dominant issue of his young presidency.

The occasion on Thursday evening was the surprise announcement by federal health officials that Americans who are fully vaccinated can go without masks or physical distancing in most cases – marking a crucial milestone in the nation’s battle against the pandemic.

“I’ve said many times: As tough as this pandemic has been, we will get through it,” Mr Biden said, appearing alongside a maskless Vice President Kamala Harris in the Rose Garden. “We will rebuild our economy, reclaim our lives and get back to normal. We’ll laugh again. We’ll know joy again. We’ll smile again – and now, see one another’s smile.”

“Better days are ahead,” he added. “I promise you.”

Building an effective response to the virus has been the central project of Mr Biden’s presidency – the one issue his advisers thought he would be judged on more than any other and the one, they think, that could unlock progress for other ambitious items on his agenda.

Mr Biden has argued that the past year has exposed American inequities in a more vivid way than ever before, and he has laid the groundwork for the types of sweeping changes that he is trying to persuade Congress to pass.

Those policies – including raising taxes on the wealthy to help pay for new spending on priorities ranging from infrastructure to child care – are meeting stiff resistance from Republicans and qualms from some Democrats. The coming weeks will test whether the progress he has overseen on the central crisis of our time is enough to dislodge a partisan Congress.

The progress in recent weeks against the virus has been unmistakable. Vaccines are now widely available, and schools are reopening. States are lifting pandemic restrictions, allowing restaurants to open, and even longtime critics are expressing newfound optimism.

“This should come from the president. It’s that big, after all the country has gone through,” said Ari Fleischer, who served as President George W Bush’s spokesman. “This is a welcome moment. A turn-the-corner moment. And it should come from the president.”

Mr Fleischer spoke from the sidelines of his son’s baseball game, and he noted the school’s policy still requires masks. “Don’t be fooled,” he said. “The nation still has a ways to go.”

Still, the decision caught insiders by surprise. Mr Biden spoke at a hastily convened event in the Rose Garden. And it seemed to be an acceleration of his earlier goal that the country would be getting back to normal by the Fourth of July. The administration is still aiming to have 70pc of eligible Americans having at least one shot of the vaccine by that date.

This week, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, appeared at a combative Senate hearing where they were forced to defend the administration’s mask guidance.

Republican senators grilled them on inconsistencies in policies and on how the administration could expect Americans to be excited about vaccination if little in their lives would change after the shots.

The White House was informed about the CDC’s decision on Wednesday night, according to a White House aide.

Shortly after the CDC made its decision public, the White House “Covid ops” team issued an all-staff email explaining that White House aides don’t need to wear masks at work if
they are two weeks past vaccination.

(© Washington Post)