Biden to give omicron-focused speech on Tuesday: reports
By Caroline Vakil - 12/18/21 03:05 PM EST
President Biden is slated to make an omicron-focused speech next week as the variant continues to circulate in the U.S. and elsewhere, multiple news outlets reported.
A White House official told NBC News that the president will tell Americans on Tuesday how the administration “will respond to this challenge” of potentially rising levels of COVID-19 cases and discuss the administration’s new steps to work with communities in need.
According to the official, per NBC, Biden will also be "issuing a stark warning of what the winter will look like for Americans that choose to remain unvaccinated."
The news of Biden's omicron-focused speech was first reported by the network on Saturday.
The reports come as health officials, cities and states brace themselves for further spread of the omicron variant, with the United States seeing increasingly high case numbers this month. The World Health Organization said on Saturday that the variant, first detected last month in South Africa, has already made its way to 89 countries.
It is not yet clear how severe the new strain is or how well the vaccines will work against it in the long term. Pfizer, BioNTech and a group of Israeli researchers have provided some encouraging signs that a booster shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, in addition to the initial two-dose regimen, appears to offer strong protection against the variant.
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https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/586427-biden-to-give-omicron-focused-speech-on-tuesday-reports
