President Joe Biden on Tuesday will address the nation about how his administration plans to fight a surge in omicron cases raging around the United States, and he’s expected to double down on a warning to unvaccinated Americans that they face a potentially deadly winter ahead.
Biden will give the speech Tuesday as the nation surpasses a seven-day average of 125,000 new COVID-19 cases daily, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and as new hospitalizations creep up to 8,000 per day.
The plan the president will discuss Tuesday will build off the winter plan he announced in early December but will include additional steps to target help to “communities in need” and make “vaccines and testing accessible,” according to the White House.
He’ll also issue a “stark warning of what the winter will look like for Americans who choose to remain unvaccinated,” a few days after he told the same group they could expect “a winter of severe illness and death.”
“It’s here now, and it’s spreading, and it’s going to increase,” Biden said after meeting with his COVID response team Thursday, calling it a direct message to the American people.
“For unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death — if you’re unvaccinated — for themselves, their families and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm,” he added.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday stressed that “this is not a speech about locking the country down” and that the president will say that the U.S. is far more prepared than it was in 2020, once again pointing to the protection of vaccines and boosters.
“He will restate … that well-vaccinated individuals get COVID due to the highly transmissible nature of omicron. Their cases will likely be mild or asymptomatic,” she said. “Our health experts assess that you’re 14 times more likely to die of COVID if you have not been vaccinated.”
As the president and top health officials urge vaccinations and boosters as safeguards against omicron, the surge in cases during the holidays could be a major setback for an administration that has touted evidence of economic recovery in recent months and for a president who had predicted Christmas could be the end of the pandemic.
“I believe we’ll be approaching normalcy by the end of this year,” Biden said from a Pfizer manufacturing facility in mid-February. “And God willing, this Christmas will be different than the last. But I can’t make that commitment to you.”
In early December, the president announced his winter plan to fight omicron, which included an increase in booster vaccination sites, a messaging campaign, the launch of family vaccination sites, an increase in “rapid response” teams for hard-hit communities and a plan to make rapid tests covered by insurance in 2022.
The White House also announced plans to send 50 million rapid tests to community sites and clinics, though they received backlash for not making more tests free and widely available to the millions of Americans who may need one. Testing lines grew and wrapped around blocks in places such as New York City this week as more cases were detected.
President Biden on Tuesday is expected to announce additional steps to make testing accessible, according to Psaki.
