WASHINGTON — Stricter travel regulations, free home tests and booster shots are key elements of President Joe Biden’s latest strategy to fight the rapidly evolving coronavirus.
Biden said his plan for getting through the winter months, which he promoted on Thursday during a visit to the National Institutes of Health, is one that “hopefully all Americans can rally.”
“My plan that I’m announcing today makes no sense in the fight against COVID-19,” Biden said. “It’s a plan that I think should unite us.”
Biden emphasized that he was not expanding or adding vaccination requirements as federal courts review his previously announced rules for health care workers and employees of larger companies.
He nodded briefly at some congressional Republicans’ attempts to halt federal spending unless Biden withdraw vaccination requirements.
“Some of my friends on the other team are claiming that if I don’t promise to never get more mandates, they’ll put us in default” on the national debt, Biden said. “In the neighborhood where I came from, in Claymont, they looked at me and said, ‘Go check it out.'”
The components of his plan, announced when people start laying down for the winter and gathering for the holidays, include:
- Require travelers entering the country to test negative for the coronavirus within one day of departure, regardless of vaccination status or nationality, rather than within three days.
- Extension until March 18, the requirement that masks must be worn on planes, trains and public transport.
- Requiring private health insurance companies to cover 100% of the cost of home testing for the coronavirus. Details, such as when this will launch, are yet to be worked out.
- Launch of a public information campaign to encourage 100 million adults to receive boosters, with a special focus on seniors.
Biden’s plan was released a day after the first confirmed case of the omicron variant was announced in the US and as a poll shows mounting frustration and waning optimism about the state of COVID-19 vaccinations.
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More than half of adults (58%) say they are “frustrated,” an increase from the 50% who said they felt this way when the first vaccination efforts began in January, according to a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation released Thursday.
The proportion of the country that is optimistic about the status of vaccinations has fallen from 66% to 48%.
The higher frustration and lower optimism are primarily driven by Republicans and, to a lesser extent, independents.
Even before the omicron variant was confirmed on Wednesday, the Biden administration had been working on a strategy to contain the coronavirus for the winter, when people will be indoors more often and travel during the holiday season.
The latest variant, which started circulating because people are still getting infected with the delta variant, added to the urgency of the administration’s message that more people should be vaccinated, including receiving a booster if they qualify. .
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“I keep coming back to that because that’s really the solution to this problem,” presidential health adviser Anthony Fauci said Wednesday after the first confirmed case of the ommicron variant was announced in the US.
The Minnesota Department of Health announced Thursday that a resident who had traveled to New York City tested positive for the ommicron variant.
Biden’s new strategy includes launching hundreds of one-stop-shop sites for entire families—children to grandparents—to get vaccinated or challenged.
Pharmacies will expand the availability of appointments and walk-in vaccinations, spreading the word via text, phone calls and emails, the White House said.
Medicare will contact 63 million seniors to encourage booster shots.
The government’s efforts will be spurred by AARP, which will offer rides to booster clinics and town halls and hold other educational events.
While nearly all Americans age 65 and older have received at least one dose of vaccine, less than half have received a booster, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Of all Americans, 70% have had at least one injection and 21% have received a boost.
A federal appeals court halted Biden’s attempt to increase vaccination rates by requiring employees of larger companies to be vaccinated or tested regularly.
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For now, the government is asking “companies to step up and do the right thing to protect their employees and their communities, which is to introduce some sort of vaccination or testing requirement for the workplace,” a senior government official who informed reporters said. on the president’s strategy on condition of anonymity.
A majority of employees at larger companies say their employer requires vaccination (36%) or say they want their employer to require it (17%), according to the Kaiser Family Foundation survey.
The public is generally divided over Biden’s vaccination requirement for workers. Slightly more say they support it (52%) than against (45%).
The public is also divided over Biden’s handling of the pandemic: 44% approve and 48% disapprove.
“I know Americans are exhausted from COVID-19 and want to know when it will end, and the new variant adds to that unease,” Biden wrote in an op-ed for USA TODAY. “I understand.”
Maureen Groppe has covered Washington for nearly three decades and is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. Follow her on Twitter @mgrope.