'We have more work to do,' Biden says, pledges more COVID tests
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[December 28, 2021]
By Trevor Hunnicutt and Susan Heavey
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden
on Monday pledged to ease a shortage of COVID-19 tests as the Omicron
variant threatened to overwhelm hospitals and stifle travel plans as it
spreads across the United States this holiday week.
"Seeing how tough it was for some folks to get a test this weekend shows
that we have more work to do," Biden said as he joined a call with the
administration's COVID-19 response team and state governors. "It's
clearly not enough."
Biden said his administration's steps include using the Defense
Production Act to boost at-home test manufacturing and making it easier
to use the Google search engine to find a nearby testing location.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it was
shortening the recommended time for isolation for Americans with
COVID-19 to five days, as long as they show no symptoms, from its
previous guidance of 10 days.
U.S. and state officials are bracing for a wave of more cases following
the Christmas holiday, with hospitalizations ticking up and New Year
celebrations yet to come.
Separately Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease official,
urged people to avoid large New Year's gatherings.
Rising cases snarled air travel over the Christmas weekend, with
thousands of flights canceled as flight crews contracted the virus.
Curtailed cruises and limited availability of testing crimped other
plans as the more transmissible variant took hold.
On Monday, U.S. airlines canceled nearly 1,000 flights, the fourth
straight day of cancellations. Travel-related stocks fell.
Over the last seven days, the average number of new cases has surged 55%
to an average of over 205,000 new infections per day, according to a
Reuters tally.
The number of hospitalized COVID patients has risen 3% over the same
period. Overall in December, the average number of new cases has risen
143% and hospitalizations climbed 31%.
Biden warned governors that the spike in cases would probably overwhelm
some hospitals, stretching staff and equipment like ventilators,
particularly in areas where fewer people are vaccinated.
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President Joe Biden and his COVID-19 Response Team hold their
regular call with the National Governors Association to discuss his
Administration's response to the Omicron variant and to hear from
the Governors on the needs in their States, in the South Court
Auditorium at the White House, in Washington, U.S., December 27,
2021. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
He declined to answer a reporter's
question about whether he endorses a vaccine mandate for domestic
air travel, another step officials have discussed.
As Biden departed Washington for his home state of Delaware, he
pledged cooperation with governors and said he had offered them any
needed additional resources.
"They want to know what we think is going to happen," he said.
For New Year's Eve on Friday, officials say people who are
vaccinated can safely gather with families, but larger celebrations
are riskier.
"When we are talking about a New Year's Eve party ... I would
recommend strongly stay away from that this year. There will be
other years to do that, but not this year," Fauci, Biden's chief
medical adviser, told CNN.
"We really still need to be extremely careful," he said separately
on MSNBC.
Last week, Biden announced reinforcements to bolster hospitals and
testing, but some healthcare experts say that effort is too little,
too late.
Peter Hotez, dean of Baylor College of Medicine's National School of
Tropical Medicine, said problems were exacerbated by issues such as
shortages of testing and healthcare workers.
"You put all those things together into the mix and we have a very
dangerous situation coming now in the country in the next couple of
weeks," he told MSNBC on Sunday.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional
reporting by Ankur Banerjee, Kanishka Singh and Lisa Shumaker;
Editing by Howard Goller and David Gregorio)
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