WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 (BNA): President Joe Biden, just four days before Christmas, sought on Tuesday to persuade a nation yearning for a normal holiday season that a largely unknown type of COVID-19 would not undo two years of pandemic progress.
“Are we going back to March 2020?” Biden said the omicron variant threatens to overwhelm hospitals with patients. The answer is absolutely not.
dpa reported that Biden sought to draw a clear contrast when describing how the omicron increase would affect vaccination versus unvaccinated, issuing a stern warning to the 60 million Americans who are not immunized.
“How concerned you are about omicron, which is now the dominant variant in this country and it has happened very quickly. The answer is straightforward: If you are not fully vaccinated, you have good reason to be concerned,” he said. “Almost everyone who has died in the past several months has not been vaccinated.”
Biden warned of the potential for a significant spike in cases among those who did not receive vaccinations, but said those Americans who have been vaccinated will be protected from the most severe consequences — especially if they get a booster dose.
The president, flanked by two Christmas trees, did not address limiting exposure through gatherings or travel during the holidays. This lack of messaging is likely to worry public health experts about omicron’s explosive growth, which could be accelerated by holiday gatherings.
The speech came as many health experts warned that the United States would see a rapid rise in cases that could affect several areas of the country simultaneously. The omicron variant is highly contagious and avoids certain antibodies.
New Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data indicates that Omicron has grown to include 73 percent of cases in the United States in just two weeks.
Biden has outlined plans to send medically trained military personnel to hospitals this winter as they prepare for the possibility that an omicron variant could cause one of the pandemic’s darkest chapters yet.
Biden announced the spread and other steps to support hospitals threatened by a surge in cases driven by the omicron variant first identified in a policy memo shared with reporters Monday night.
The federal government will also buy half a billion rapid tests to be available starting in January and will once again tap FEMA to spot vaccination clinics, as Biden faces a race against an omicron variant that’s spreading like wildfires across the US – and a potentially rising death toll which has already passed the first year of the epidemic.
After his lengthy prepared remarks, he also responded to a reporter’s question as to why more government-provided rapid tests would not be available until after the holiday. It comes amid reports of long queues for tests wrapping around many blocks and pharmacies after pharmacies ran out of home tests.
Some press reports indicated that the Biden administration passed health advisors’ recommendations to buy the tests earlier because they believed the move was too expensive and that increased consumer demand would spur increased supply through free market forces.
Biden said the sharp rise in Omicron was unpredictable, dismissing a reporter’s hypothesis that the initial decision not to buy millions of new test kits was a “failure.”
Biden replied, “What took so long was that it didn’t take long at all. What happened is that the Omicron virus spread more quickly than anyone thought.” “If I told you four weeks ago it was going to spread 50 percent, 100 percent, 200 percent you would look at me and say, Biden what are you drinking?”
Biden twice mentioned former President Donald Trump, who this week said he received a booster dose. Trump’s referrals amounted to an appeal to the millions of Americans skeptical about the most vulnerable vaccines this winter who didn’t vote for him to get the vaccine because the former president got three doses and oversaw development of the vaccine.
“Omicron is serious business and potentially fatal to unvaccinated people,” Biden said. “Thanks to the previous administration and our scientific community, America is one of the first countries to get a vaccine,” Biden said.
MI