U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Thursday a winter campaign against Covid 19, with new testing requirements for travelers and a surge in vaccination efforts as the new Omicron variant threatens to revive the epidemic.
Biden has had steady leadership after the chaotic Donald Trump years, but the mutating coronavirus keeps defy him, and has helped drive his approval ratings deep underwater.
Biden unveiled a raft of actions designed to tamp down Covid 19 in the coming months, as the latest Omicron variant spreads worldwide, urging the nation to unite behind the strategy.
Biden said that it is a plan that I think should unite us. He spoke from the Washington suburb of the National Institutes of Health.
I know that Covid 19 has been very divisive. He said that it's become a political issue in this country. A sad, sad commentary. Nine cases of the new strain have been confirmed in the United States, including five in New York, announced Thursday evening by state governor Kathy Hochul, and one in the Pacific island state of Hawaii.
Both the Hawaii case and Minnesota case involved residents with no recent international travel history, signaling the strain is already circulating inside the country.
This is a case of community spread. The Hawaii Health Department said the individual has no history of travel and was not in a statement about the island's confirmed Omicron case.
Biden has changed his actions, including the requirement that all inbound international travelers be tested within a day of flying.
A US official said that the law will apply to all travelers, both American and foreign, regardless of their vaccination status.
Biden will be extending a mask mandate on airplanes, trains and other public transportation through mid-March.
A White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters that vaccine requirements could eventually be added to domestic flights. She said nothing is off the table.
The barrage of measures is intended to reassure Americans that Biden is doing everything possible to prevent the flu from affecting the impressive US economic recovery and the winter holidays.
In addition to his public rollout, Biden wrote a column for the Friday edition of the large-circulation USA Today national newspaper to assuade Americans' unease about the new variant and Covid in general.
We will beat it back with science and speed, not chaos and confusion - just as we did in the spring and again with the more powerful delta variant in the summer and fall, the president wrote.
Biden and his aides stressed that there will be no return to mass shutdowns.
The White House is facing the challenge that many Americans are not receptive to Biden's appeal for collective action.
Despite ever-more creative attempts to encourage people to get their shots, about 40 percent of the country has yet to be fully vaccinated, and booster rates are lagging too.
Biden said a surge in outreach on vaccines and booster shots was being launched, with a nationwide campaign targeting recipients of Medicare public health care. The government will work with AARP, a large lobbying group representing people aged 50 and over.
The Biden administration will try to make sure schools don't return to mass lockdowns at the other end of the age scale.
Biden said that they're expanding our efforts to vaccine children, ages five and up. If you have a concern about the Delta variant or the Omicron variant, get your child vaccinated at one of the 35,000 locations in the country. The White House will encourage the use of home testing kits by announcing that health insurance must cover 100 percent of the cost.
There will be an increase in the availability of free kits for those without health insurance.
The kits currently sell for around $25, compared to being available in other countries in Europe for free or at nominal costs.
The White House stated that the administration's restrictions on travelers from eight southern African countries over growing Omicron fears was not a punishment for those nations but a safety measure.
Psaki said that the ban on US arrivals from South Africa, Botswana and other nations was imposed last week and that we are in close touch with leaders in these countries.
She said it was not meant to be a punishment. The steps recommended by our public health officials and medical experts are to be taken to delay the spread of a variant.