The 90-page strategy spells out initiatives and investments to continue to drive down serious illness and deaths, while preparing for potential new variants and providing employers and schools the resources to remain open.
It follows Biden’s Tuesday night State of the Union speech, in which he pointed to progress against the pandemic since last year, with a dramatic reduction in cases, readily available vaccines and tests, and new therapeutics soon becoming more accessible.
COVID-19 cases have fallen to their lowest level since last summer in recent weeks, after a winter spike from the highly transmissible omicron variant. Deaths, though, which lag cases by weeks, are still elevated, with an average of nearly 1,700 people dying in the U.S. each day. Officials emphasize that most instances of serious illnesses and death in the U.S. occur among those who are unvaccinated or who have not received a booster dose of vaccine.
Meanwhile, businesses across the country are struggling to navigate employees’ lingering concerns about COVID-19 and desire for the flexibility of working from home. Many companies’ would like to get workers back into offices. Those who test positive at the sites will be able to obtain the antiviral pills for quick use, dramatically reducing the risk of bad outcomes.
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