Then-candidate Joe Biden in 2020 promised at least ten times he would “shut down the virus.”

But as fresh variants have emerged since Biden assumed office in January, the president has failed to shut down the Chinese coronavirus. The New York Times acknowledged last week the United States has suffered more coronavirus deaths under Biden than under former President Donald Trump, despite vaccine availability.

The fears of a fresh variant impacting the United States caused NBC’s Chuck Todd on Sunday to slam Biden for campaigning on “taming” the virus while “prematurely declaring independence” from the virus in July.

“Ultimately, this is also a political problem,” Chuck noted. “President Biden ran on taming the pandemic. And he prematurely declared independence from the virus back in July”:

On Friday the world awakened to a new variant, dubbed the “Biden variant,” which spawned from South Africa. The variant has so far reached at least two other continents, Australia and Europe.

“The two passengers were amongst fourteen people from southern Africa who arrived on Qatar Airways QR908, Doha to Sydney, which arrived around 7pm, Saturday November 27,” the New South Wales Ministry of Health announced Sunday.

In Europe, the variant has revealed itself in England, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, and Belgium. As a result, Israel and Thailand have already instituted coronavirus restrictions, such as forbidding the entry of foreigners for two weeks.

In the United States, meanwhile, Biden restricted travel from the African Nations on Friday. “As a precautionary measure until we have more information, I am ordering additional air travel restrictions from South Africa and seven other countries,” Biden’s statement read.

Biden’s travel restrictions are in contradiction to his previous opinion that former President Trump’s travel restrictions in 2020 were racist and xenophobic.

Travel restrictions may not be the only measure used to combat the latest strain of the virus. Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday told Chuck Todd that “everything is on the table.”

In a second Sunday appearance, Fauci told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos it is too early to determine if Biden must issue more lockdowns and mandates. “It’s really too early to say,” Fauci responded to Stephanopoulos about whether more lockdowns and mandates were on the horizon.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø