Biden Warns Unvaccinated: Winter Of ‘Severe Illness And Death’ Ahead
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President Joe Biden warned unvaccinated Americans they face a winter of “severe illness and death” amid the spread of the omicron variant of COVID-19 and an ongoing surge in new infections.
Biden made the comments during a meeting with medical advisers on Thursday as scientists are still racing to understand the threat of the omicron strain, particularly as millions of Americans prepare to travel for the holidays.
The president stressed the U.S. was in a good place to protect Americans with different tools than in the early days of the pandemic, noting omicron hasn’t spread as fast as it would have without widespread access to vaccines. But he warned the unvaccinated to get their shots, saying preliminary evidence shows vaccines — and notably, booster jabs — may provide protection against severe disease from all variants of COVID-19.
“It’s here now and it’s spreading, and it’s gonna increase,” Biden said of the omicron strain. “For unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death … for themselves, their families and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm.”
The best protection against Omicron is getting fully vaccinated. If you haven’t gotten the shot yet, now is the time. If you’re over 16 and got vaccinated at least 6 months ago, go get your booster. Head to https://t.co/jlrmakxHWm to find a clinic near you.
— President Biden (@POTUS) December 16, 2021
“But there’s good news,” Biden continued. “If you’re vaccinated, and you have your booster shot, you’re protected from severe illness and death, period.”
The emergence of the omicron strain has prompted worries of an increase in breakthrough infections nearly two years into the pandemic and after many Americans have already been double- or even triple-vaccinated.
All Americans are eligible for a booster shot within six months of their initial course of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or the Moderna shot. Those who got the Johnson & Johnson single-dose inoculation are eligible for a booster dose after two months.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, has echoed calls for Americans to get vaccinated and get their boosters, warning people to heed public health advice amid data that shows the omicron strain is far more infectious than even the highly transmissible delta variant.
“It has what we call a doubling time of about three days. And if you do the math on that, if you have just a couple of percentage of the isolates being omicron, very soon it’s going to be the dominant variant [in the U.S.],” Fauci said. “We’ve seen that in South Africa, we’re seeing it in the U.K., and I’m absolutely certain that’s what we’re going to be seeing here relatively soon.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
