President Joe Biden will speak on Tuesday about the omicron variant of the coronavirus, which is behind a recent surge in COVID-19 cases in the country, the White House said Saturday.
“On Tuesday, the President will deliver remarks on the status of the country's fight against COVID-19, as the country sees rising cases amid the growing Omicron variant,” press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted on Saturday.
“Building off his Winter Plan, @POTUS will announce new steps the Administration is taking to help communities in need of assistance, while also issuing a stark warning of what the winter will look like for Americans that choose to remain unvaccinated,” Psaki tweeted.
The omicron variant was first named a variant of concern by the World Health Organization on November 26.
The WHO announced on Saturday that omicron has now been detected in 89 countries, and COVID-19 cases involving the variant are doubling every 1.5 to 3 days in places with community transmission and not just infections acquired abroad, The Associated Press reported.
The U.N. health agency said omicron is spreading rapidly even in countries with high vaccination rates and where a significant proportion of the population has recovered from COVID-19, the AP reported.
“We are prepared for the rising case levels, and @POTUS will detail how we will respond to this challenge,” Psaki also tweeted. “He will remind Americans that they can protect themselves from severe illness from COVID-19 by getting vaccinated and getting their booster shot when they are eligible.”
As of Friday, the current seven-day moving average of daily new cases of COVID-19 was 122,297, an increase of 1.5% compared with the previous seven-day moving average, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. leads the globe in number of overall cases of the virus, with 50.7 million, and deaths, with more than 806,000, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center on Saturday.
Some material for this report came from The Associated Press.
