Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
It May Not Be March 2020, But Biden Urges Caution And Vaccinations
Roll Call: Biden Issues Dire Warning For Unvaccinated As Omicron Surges Before Holidays
President Joe Biden, just four days before Christmas, sought Tuesday to convince a country craving a normal holiday season that a largely unknown COVID-19 variant will not undo two years of pandemic progress. “Are we going back to March 2020?” Biden said as the omicron variant threatens to deluge hospitals with sick patients. “The answer is absolutely no.” Biden sought to draw a clear contrast when describing how the omicron surge will affect the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated, issuing a dire warning to 60 million unvaccinated Americans. (Kopp, 12/21)
The Hill: Biden Preaches Concern, Not Panic On Omicron
President Biden repeatedly emphasized that the U.S. was in a different position than March 2020, largely because of the wide availability of coronavirus vaccines. There are over 200 million Americans who are fully vaccinated. “We're prepared. We know more. We just have to stay focused," Biden said. (Weixel, 12/21)
Modern Healthcare: Biden's New COVID-19 Plans Include Hospital Staffing Support, PPE
Hospitals will get staff reinforcements, Federal Emergency Management Agency aid and additional personal protective equipment to help fight the latest COVID-19 wave under an expanded pandemic response strategy the White House unveiled Tuesday. An additional 1,000 military doctors, nurses, paramedics and other personnel will be deployed to hospitals in January and February as needed, according to a fact sheet. The federal government will dispatch emergency response teams first to Arizona, Indiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, Vermont and Wisconsin. President Joe Biden outlined the latest steps to combat the pandemic in a speech Tuesday "The federal government's paying for all this, period," he said. (Goldman, 12/21)
The Hill: Five Things To Know About Biden's Omicron Plan
President Biden laid out a plan Tuesday to tackle the new threat of increasing COVID-19 cases across the U.S. that is largely due to omicron quickly becoming the dominant variant. Here are five things to know about the plan. (Sullivan, 12/21)
Also —
The New York Times: Omicron Will Surge Despite Biden’s New Plan, Scientists Say.
Even as President Biden on Tuesday outlined new plans for battling the highly contagious Omicron variant, public health experts warned that the measures would not be sufficient to prevent a grim rise in infections and hospitalizations over the next few weeks. The administration’s strategy includes doubling down on vaccination campaigns and propping up hospitals as they confront a large influx of patients. Federal officials will direct resources, including Army doctors, to support health care systems and distribute rapid tests to Americans. (Rabin and Anthes, 12/22)
CNBC: Americans Are Tired Of Covid, Official Response To Omicron Creates Confusion
American corporations, government officials and other institutions are once again weighing the risks of Covid-19 as they plot a path forward during the holiday season. But this time around, instead of facing a scared public, they’re dealing with a largely vaccinated population increasingly exhausted by the virus and its variants. The result is a jumbled, contradictory response to the heavily mutated omicron variant. (Sherman, 12/21)
And the CDC may reevaluate its isolation guidance for fully vaccinated people —
Axios: Experts Urge CDC To Shorten COVID Isolation Period
Health care experts believe the CDC needs to shorten its guidance for a 10-day isolation period for fully vaccinated people who test positive for COVID-19 — or else hospitals will face even more severe shortages of staff as the Omicron variant takes hold. "Mandatory 10-day isolation is going to make things really difficult for essential services," tweeted Aaron Carroll, chief health officer at Indiana University. (Herman, 12/22)
