As Omicron Soars, Biden Announces Hospital Relief, Free Tests

Dec. 21, 2021 — With the Omicron variant of the coronavirus blazing throughout the United States, President Joe Biden supplied reassurance on Tuesday to Americans who’ve adopted public well being steerage to get vaccinated and boosted, and delivered a stark warning to those that haven’t.

“Because Omicron spreads so easily, we’ll see some fully vaccinated people get COVID. Potentially in large numbers,” the president mentioned. “These cases are highly unlikely to lead to serious illness. Vaccinated people who get COVID may get ill, but they’re protected from severe illness and death.”

But he mentioned the nation was not again to sq. one with COVID-19.

“This is not March of 2020,” he mentioned.

In addition to the warning, Biden outlined plans to assist the nation reply to Omicron, together with the acquisition of 500 million fast exams for at-home use and army assist for burdened hospitals.

He mentioned vaccinated folks ought to maintain their plans to have a good time the vacations, particularly if celebrating with different vaccinated folks.

But he cautioned the estimated 40 million eligible Americans who stay unvaccinated.

“Omicron is serious and perhaps deadly business for unvaccinated people,” Biden mentioned. “Some of you will get very sick.”

He mentioned hospitals would proceed to be dangerously burdened, each by way of gear and staffing.

To assist ease staffing shortages, Biden mentioned he had deployed six emergency response groups together with clinic personnel and paramedics to 6 states: Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Arizona, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

He will even ship 1,000 army medical doctors and nurses to overwhelmed amenities to ease calls for. He can also be activating the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Response Coordination Center to assist with planning and logistics. He mentioned important provides like ventilators, masks, robes, and gloves would even be supplied.

Hospital advocates applauded the assistance.

“The Biden Administration’s announcement today to deploy additional medical personnel to COVID-burdened hospitals and stand-up new mass vaccination sites across the country will help alleviate some of the burden on the nation’s already overwhelmed health care workforce,” mentioned Gerald Harmon, MD, president of the American Medical Association.

Harmon urged all who have been eligible to get vaccinated and boosted to additional ease the pressure.

“We continue to urge the Administration to use all available tools at their disposal and not leave any resources or support on the sidelines,” Rick Pollack, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, mentioned in a written assertion.

Week to week, instances of COVID-19 attributable to the Omicron variant have soared. Estimates by the CDC present Omicron inflicting roughly 13% of instances within the week ending Dec. 11. By Tuesday, Omicron was inflicting about 74% of instances.

“I’ve worked in infectious disease for 30 years. I’ve NEVER seen anything like the speed of Omicron,” former CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, posted on Twitter.

For the unique coronavirus, the essential reproductive fee — the common variety of folks contaminated as contacts of a single case — was 2.5. For the Delta variant, that quantity rose to round 7. The primary reproductive fee of Omicron could also be as excessive as 10.

On Tuesday, Biden acknowledged the nation was caught off guard.

“I don’t think anybody anticipated that this was going to be as rapidly spreading as it did,” he mentioned.

He acknowledged that exams and testing companies have been in brief provide.

“All of a sudden, it was like everybody rushed to the counter. It was a big, big rush,” he mentioned.

He promised extra exams could be on the best way. He mentioned new testing websites could be opened in areas of excessive demand like New York City, the place folks have been ready in line for hours to get examined.

Biden introduced he would proceed to make use of the Defense Production Act to ease the availability crunch for COVID-19 exams, buying 500 million exams that will be despatched to Americans free of charge by way of a brand new web site, which hasn’t but been launched.

Most of the small print of who can get the free exams, and what number of they’ll get at a time, are nonetheless being labored out, White House press secretary Jen Psaki mentioned in a briefing earlier than the president’s speech.

Public coverage specialists cheered the announcement.

“The U.S. has been a little bit behind the curve in terms not just getting the tests out, but moving the testing technology along compared to European countries,” mentioned Jeffrey Levi, PhD, a professor of well being coverage and administration at George Washington University’s Milken School of Public Health.

The 500 million extra exams that have been introduced Tuesday are an additional step, past the promise made in Biden’s winter plan, to have non-public insurers cowl the prices of at-home exams.

“This feels like a major step forward,” mentioned Levi. “It remains to be seen whether that production capacity can be met.”