Washington: President Joe Biden on Monday said several US hospitals can be “flooded” by Covid cases, but this country is generally ready to meet the latest waves and Americans do not need to panic.
In a virtual meeting held by the White House with several Governors of the State and Top Health Advisers, Biden stressed that the rapid spread of Omicron variants would not have the same impact as the initial outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020 or a delta surge this year.
“Omicron is a source of concern, but it should not be a source of panic,” he said.
Testing is available and mass vaccination means that for many infections do not lead to serious illness.
“Because there are so many vaccinations and booster, we don’t see hospitalization up as much as they did before,” he said. “Americans, Americans have made progress. Everything is better.”
But “with increased cases, we still have tens of millions of people who are not vaccinated and we see hospitalization up,” he said. There is a “hospital in several places to be flooded both in terms of equipment and staff.”
Biden admitted that even though there was a surge in testing capacity, it was still not enough.
“Seeing how difficult it is for some people to get this weekend test showing that we have more work to do,” he said.
In addition to expanding free testing sites, administration encourages for more home testing kits, Biden said. “Nothing when we took office. Nothing. Now we have eight (brand) on the market,” he said.
As part of efforts, the government bought 500 million tests at home for distribution to Americans.
“It’s not enough. This is definitely not enough. If we know, we will get harder, faster,” he said. “We have to do more.”
The United States suffered a higher victim of pandemic than any country on Earth, with more than 816,000 covid deaths recorded and 52 million cases.