Omicron variant is cause for concern, not panic: US President Joe Biden

United States President Joe Biden, in an address on Monday, said that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is a cause for concern but not panic adding that a country-wide lockdown is not being considered at the moment. 

He further urged Americans to get fully vaccinated against the disease, including getting their booster shots, in order to curb the spread of the virus.

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However, he also cautioned that the entry of the Omicron variant of COVID was inevitable clarifying that the country also had the necessary resources to protect Americans.

When omicron arrives, and it will, Biden said, America will “face this new threat just as we have faced those that have come before it.”

He appealed to the roughly 80 million unvaccinated Americans aged 5 and up to get their shots, and for the rest of the country to seek out booster shots six months after their second dose. He also encouraged everyone to get back to wearing face masks in all indoor public settings — a pandemic precaution that has fallen out of use across much of the country.

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Biden was joined by Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and the president’s COVID-19 adviser, who said earlier Monday that scientists hope to know in the next week or two how well the existing coronavirus vaccines protect against the variant, and how dangerous it is compared to earlier strains, according to reports from Associated Press.

“We really don’t know,” Fauci told ABC’s “Good Morning America,” calling speculation premature.

The new variant poses the latest test to Biden’s efforts to contain the pandemic, mitigate its impacts on the economy and return a sense of normalcy to the United States during the holiday season.

Biden last week moved to restrict travel from South Africa and seven other countries in southern Africa in a bid to give scientists time to learn more about the new variant, and for more Americans to get vaccinated before it hits the country.