President Joe Biden has appeased the people of the United States in the face of a violent wave of omicrons and sees his country armed. “We are ready. We’ll get through this, ”said Biden in a speech in Washington.
Biden wants to mobilize the military to stabilize the situation in the hospitals.
Those who have been vaccinated, according to the US President, can spend the upcoming holidays as planned with a good feeling. It looks different with the unvaccinated. To get vaccinated is a “patriotic duty”, so Biden.
In the fight against the virus, the US president is primarily relying on armament in hospitals. Around 1,000 military personnel are to be mobilized to help out in overburdened clinics – including doctors, nurses, paramedics and other medical military personnel.
Biden also announced that from January half a billion free corona self-tests will be sent to people in the country – they can be requested online, for example.
Shutting down public life is currently out of the question for the US government. Means: no contact restrictions, no lockdown!
According to estimates by the CDC health authority on Monday, the Omikron variant made up around three quarters of all new infections in the United States in the past week and is thus dominant.
In some regions, such as in and around New York or the northwest, the value is more than 90 percent. In the past few weeks, the number of corona cases has risen sharply again. In some places there have recently been long queues at test centers.
Biden emphasized that it was currently a “critical moment” in the pandemic – but the situation was different from that of the beginning of 2020. He practically begged people to get vaccinated.
The vaccination campaign got off to a good start in the USA – but then stalled. So far, 61.5 percent of the approximately 330 million people in the country have been vaccinated twice. Almost 30 percent of them also received a booster vaccination.
Biden also gave hope that the entry restrictions imposed by the US government because of Omikron on countries in southern Africa will soon be abolished.
According to Biden, this is a possibility that he will discuss with his experts “in the coming days”. The restrictions were originally introduced to buy time before Omikron would spread to the United States. But that had long happened, which is why the experts had already asked him about the restrictions, said Biden. “I’ll have an answer to that soon,” said Biden.
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