The White House unveiled a new pandemic strategy on Wednesday, anticipating a time when COVID-19 “does not disrupt our daily lives.”
The 96-page blueprint – The National Covid-19 Preparedness Plan – focuses on four main areas: preparing for new variants, treating infections quickly and efficiently with the latest medical advancements, avoiding shutdowns of schools and business, and continuing a vaccination drive both in the U.S. and abroad.
A summary of the plan shared with CNN reads: “We look to a future when Americans no longer fear lockdowns, shutdowns, and our kids not going to school. It’s a future when the country relies on the powerful layers of protection we have built and invests in the next generation of tools to stay ahead of this virus.”
At Tuesday’s State of the Union address, President Biden said he knew Americans were “tired, frustrated and exhausted” with the virus but said the nation was “moving forward safely, back to more normal routines.”
Biden detailed a “test to treat” program, which would allow pharmacists to dispense antiviral pills “on the spot at no cost” if a patient tests positive for the virus. He said the country would receive one million doses of Pfizer’s antiviral pill this month and double that in April.
The New York Times adds:
Mr. Biden also vowed in his Tuesday night address to prepare for new variants, saying that if necessary, his administration could deploy new vaccines within 100 days of a variant’s arrival. He called on Congress to provide new funding for the administration to stockpile more tests, masks and pills. He also said that Americans who ordered free at-home tests from a government website, covidtests.gov, would be able to order more beginning next week.
“I cannot promise a new variant won’t come,” he said. “But I can promise you we’ll do everything within our power to be ready if it does.”
NBC News reports:
Another goal is strengthening the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s data collection surveillance, a White House official said. There have also been discussions about whether to create a more permanent role to manage pandemic preparedness for the long term, according to two individuals familiar with the plan.
Biden’s new plan will include a significant amount of money to address long Covid as well as bereavement for children who’ve lost parents to the virus and vice versa, according to a person briefed on it. The strategy will also involve the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and other agencies working together to put better ventilation requirements into all buildings including offices and schools, the individual said.
The Times adds key context:
There are an average of about 60,000 new U.S. cases a day, according to a New York Times database. That is far less than the 800,000 daily average in January, at the peak of the winter surge fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron variant. But it is still more than five times as much as the daily caseload last June, before Delta drove a summer surge.
Even as Mr. Biden proclaims that things are getting better, large groups of Americans remain at risk. Children under 5 are not yet eligible to be vaccinated. On Monday, New York State health officials released data showing that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is much less effective in preventing infection in children 5 to 11 years than in adolescents or adults.