US President Joe Biden is in Washington, DC, on December 1, 2021.
President Joe Biden will announce plans today to increase protections against COVID-19 this winter as the delta coronaviruses variant continues to ravage the country and the worrisome omicron variant looms. The announcement will be made by Biden during his visit to the National Institutes of Health.
The president's plan includes setting policy to make sure that over-the-counter, at- home tests are covered by health insurance plans. Health protocols for travel are tightened. Every inbound international traveler to the US will need to test negative within one day of departure, regardless of their nationality and vaccination status. Extending mask requirements on airplanes, trains, and public transit is in the plan.
The administration is assembling over 60 emergency medical response teams to help fight the surge in cases from omicron. The administration is trying to get 13 million doses of treatments.
There are vaccines.
The main thrust of the plan is to get more Americans fully vaccined. Current vaccines are highly effective against delta, but only a small percentage of Americans are fully protected. It's not clear how effective the current vaccines will be against omicron, which has a susceptibility to immune defenses. Vaccine makers and researchers are trying to assess vaccine efficacy against a variant. Health experts think that full vaccine and booster will protect against disease and death.
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Still, vaccine makers are not taking any chances and are planning ahead for omicron-specific vaccines and booster shots. Moderna's president, Stephen Hoge, told the news agency that the company has started working on a booster shot. The booster will be tested and ready to submit to the FDA as early as March, according to Hoge. The company is working on a multivalent vaccine that would target four different types.
Pfizer and its partner BioNTech have suggested a similar time frame for the omicron-specific shot.
The new variant of concern, omicron, is serious, according to Pfizer's chief scientific officer. We don't know if it's a new threatening wave or not. We always start with being prepared for the worst.
Pfizer expects to be able to conduct a clinical trial with an omicron-specific shot in about two months. The companies will be able to produce the shots in three months. 330 million doses a month is how much it would mean.
