Biden to pledge 500M free COVID-19 tests to counter omicron

With the omicron variant on the march, President Joe Biden plans to announce 500 million free rapid tests for Americans, increased support for hospitals under strain and a redoubling of vaccination and boosting efforts.

In a speech scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, Biden is announcing major changes to his COVID-19 winter plan, his hand forced by the arrival and rapid spread of the omicron variant, whose properties are yet not fully understood by scientists.

The world is confronting the prospect of a second straight holiday season with COVID-19 as families and friends begin to gather. Scientists don’t yet know whether omicron causes more serious disease, but they do know that vaccination should offer strong protections against severe illness and death. The White House provided details on the proposals Biden will announce in his speech.

President Biden is holding a news conference at 2:30 p.m. Watch live in the player below.

A cornerstone of the plan is Biden’s decision for the government to purchase 500 million coronavirus rapid tests and ship them free to Americans starting in January. People will use a new website to order their tests, which will then be sent to them by U.S. mail. That marks a major shift for Biden, whose earlier plan had called for many Americans to purchase the hard-to-find tests on their own and then seek reimbursement from their health insurance.

Public health experts had criticized Biden’s initial approach as unwieldy and warned that the U.S. would face another round of problems with testing at a critical time. They pointed to other advanced countries such as the United Kingdom, where the government ensures access to testing. In the U.S., rapid tests for at-home use are much more expensive than in Europe, and they have proved to be frustratingly hard to find in stores.

The federal government will also establish new testing sites and use the Defense Production Act to help manufacture more tests.

To assist hospitals buckling under the new COVID-19 wave, Biden is prepared to deploy an additional 1,000 troops with medical skills as well as direct federal medical personnel to Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Arizona, New Hampshire and Vermont. There are also plans to send out additional ventilators and equipment from the national stockpile, expanding hospital capacity to handle infected patients.

The government will also stand up multiple vaccination sites and provide hundreds of personnel to administer shots. New rules will make it easier for pharmacists to work across state lines to aid the public health efforts.

Scientists stress that vaccination is still the best approach to keep Americans safe from omicron. For those who are already fully vaccinated, a booster shot has been shown in lab tests to provide strong protection against the variant. Although reports of breakthrough cases abound, data show that vaccinated people who become infected are much less likely to suffer serious disease leading to hospitalization or death. To the unvaccinated, Biden plans to deliver a stern admonition that they’re risking their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

In a preview of Biden’s speech, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at Monday’s press briefing that the Democratic president doesn’t plan to impose any lockdowns and will instead be encouraging people to get inoculated — and, if they’re eligible, to get their booster shot.

“This is not a speech about locking the country down. This is a speech about the benefits of being vaccinated,” Psaki told reporters.

Biden’s top medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said over the weekend that Biden will issue “a stark warning of what the winter will look like” for unvaccinated Americans.

Biden has found himself in the delicate position of both alerting the country to the dangers posed by omicron and reassuring Americans that the vaccines will protect them. White House officials are looking to ease the nation back toward accepting the reality of an endemic virus with far lower stakes for the vaccinated. This has meant setting a difficult balance as cases rise and as deaths and serious illness among the unvaccinated dominate headlines.

Underscoring how widespread the virus is, the White House said late Monday that Biden had been in close contact with a staff member who later tested positive for COVID-19. The staffer spent about 30 minutes around the president on Air Force One on Friday on a trip from Orange, South Carolina, to Philadelphia. The staffer, who was fully vaccinated and boosted, tested positive earlier Monday, Psaki said.

Psaki said Biden has tested negative twice since Sunday and will test again on Wednesday. Citing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Psaki said Biden didn’t need to quarantine and would continue with his regular schedule.

There are 40 million eligible but unvaccinated American adults. Efforts to increase vaccination rates have struggled to overcome a series of political, social and cultural divides. Psaki said the president plans to appeal to survival instincts.

“Our health experts assess that you are 14 times more likely to die of COVID if you have not been vaccinated versus vaccinated,” she said Monday.

Scientists say omicron spreads even easier than other coronavirus strains, including delta. It has already become the dominant strain in the U.S., accounting for nearly three-quarters of new infections last week.

Early studies suggest that the vaccinated will need a booster shot for the best chance at preventing an omicron infection but that even without the extra dose, vaccination should still largely protect people from serious sickness or death.

In New York City, nearly 42,600 people citywide tested positive from Wednesday through Saturday — compared with fewer than 35,800 in the entire month of November. The city has never had so many people test positive in such a short period of time since testing became widely available; there’s no clear picture of how many people got the virus during the city’s first surge in the spring of 2020.

The latest outbreak reflects the global challenges of stopping the coronavirus pandemic.

The Dutch government began a tough nationwide lockdown on Sunday to rein in sharply rising infections, but many European leaders have opted for something less. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said officials have decided against imposing further restrictions, at least for now.

France and Germany have barred most British travelers from entering, and the government in Paris has banned public concerts and fireworks displays at New Year’s celebrations. Ireland imposed an 8 p.m. curfew on pubs and bars and limited attendance at indoor and outdoor events, while Greece will have 10,000 police officers on duty over the holidays to carry out COVID-19 pass checks.

In Spain, the national average of new cases is double what it was a year ago. Neighboring Portugal is telling most nonessential workers to work from home for a week in January.

Stock markets in Asia, Europe and the U.S. fell on Monday with the expectation that the infections could weigh on global economic growth and worsen global supply chain challenges.

___

Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.