Biden Says Rapid Spread of Omicron Unforeseen: ‘You Would’ve Looked at Me and Said, Biden, What Are You Drinking?’

President Joe Biden delivered remarks about the Covid-19 pandemic from the White House on Tuesday and afterward took questions from the press corps.

Phil Mattingly of CNN was first out of the gate: “On testing, sir, you said we have to do better, but public health officials have been saying for months you need to surge rapid tests for just this moment. Is it a failure that you don’t have an adequate amount of tests for everyone to be able to get one if they need one right now?”

Biden denied there had been a failure, yet at the same time acknowledged “Covid is spreading so rapidly,” and added, “I don’t think anybody anticipated that this was gonna be as rapidly spreading as it did.”

The president stated that “all of a sudden it was like everybody rushed to the counter” to obtain tests. “And I knew that was coming, so what I tried to do is meet with the companies and use the Defense Production Act to get a half a billion more tests and figure out how to get them to their homes, get them on shelves in the store. So that’s what’s it all about.”

Following up, Yamiche Alcindor of PBS asked, “What’s your message to Americans who are trying to get tested now and who are not able to get tested and who are wondering what took so long to ramp up testing?”

Biden seemed mildly irritated by the question.

“Come on, ‘What took so long?'” he bristled, repeating Alcindor’s question.

“I’m hearing that from people who are trying to get tested now before the holidays,” she replied.

“Well, what took so long is it didn’t take long at all,” said Biden. “What happened was the Omicron virus spread even more rapidly than anybody thought. If I had told you four weeks ago that this would spread by – a day-to-day basis – it would spread by 50, 100%, 200%, 500%, you would’ve looked at me and said, ‘Biden, what are you drinking?’ But that’s what it did.”

Watch above via CNN.