Joe Biden urges calm, not alarm as US smashes global Covid-19 record and Omicron runs rampant
- Biden addresses nation after US reports 1 million new Covid-19 cases in a day
- Soaring Omicron could lead to more dangerous variants, WHO official warns
In remarks before a meeting with his Covid-19 response team at the White House on Tuesday, Biden aimed to convey his administration’s urgency in addressing Omicron and convince wary Americans that the current situation bears little resemblance to the onset of the pandemic or last year’s deadly winter.
The president emphasised that vaccines, booster shots and therapeutic drugs have lessened the danger for the overwhelming majority of Americans who are fully vaccinated.
“You can still get Covid, but it’s highly unlikely, very unlikely, that you’ll become seriously ill,” Biden said of vaccinated people.
More than 35 million people in the United States have still yet to be vaccinated despite the availability of vaccine supplies.
Omicron’s rates of deaths and hospitalisations have been lower across the world, raising hopes the virus could be evolving into a relatively benign seasonal illness.
But the World Health Organization in Europe sounded an ominous note of caution, warning the soaring infection rates could have the opposite effect.
Vaccine T-cells may hold robust defensive line against Omicron: study
“The more Omicron spreads, the more it transmits and the more it replicates, the more likely it is to throw out a new variant,” WHO senior emergencies officer Catherine Smallwood told AFP.
“Now, Omicron is lethal, it can cause death … maybe a little bit less than Delta, but who’s to say what the next variant might throw out,” she added.
“Even in well-capacitated, sophisticated health systems there are real struggles that are happening at the moment.”
Such a scenario was feared in Britain, where the government said Tuesday that hospitals have switched to “war footing” due to staff shortages.
After the UK hit a record 218,724 cases in 24-hours, Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised action to plug staffing gaps in the worst-hit areas, including drafting medical volunteers backed by army support.
UK PM Johnson resists lockdown as Omicron fuels record 218,000 daily cases
Johnson also defended his decision not to increase restrictions over Christmas in England – unlike in other parts of the UK – and ruled out another nationwide lockdown.
France registered more than 270,000 new cases, easily topping previous records.
But dwarfing those numbers was the 1,080,211 reported by the United States on Monday, a global record.
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Omicron variant driving record-breaking Covid-19 infection rates in the US and Europe
The country’s Monday figures are usually higher due to delays in weekend tallying – and were likely inflated further after a three-day New Year’s holiday weekend.
The Omicron variant is accounting for the lion’s share of new US coronavirus cases. Omicron made up 95 per cent of all sequenced Covid-19 cases in the US in the week ending January 1, up from a revised 77 per cent in the previous week, according to a model by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
WHO sees further evidence Omicron is milder but urges caution
Previously, the CDC estimated that the variant accounted for 58.6 per cent of cases in the week ending December 25.
Biden on Tuesday announced that the US was doubling its order for an antiviral pill produced by Pfizer that was recently authorised by the FDA to prevent serious illness and death from Covid-19. That means 20 million doses, with the first 10 million pills to be delivered by June.
The pills are “a game changer and have the potential to dramatically alter the impact of Covid-19, the impact it’s had on this country and our people,” Biden said.
Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters, Bloomberg
