The Biden administration is looking to deploy the military to help with medical work on the virus, although the number isn’t especially large. The White House announced it will send 1,000 military personnel to hospitals in January and February, including doctors, nurses, and others.
This is in addition to six emergency teams being deployed to various states with 100 staff members, as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) sending additional response teams to hospitals in some states. The federal government will allegedly foot the bill, which also means taxpayers are paying for it. Also, starting in January, the Biden administration will be sending out close to 500 million COVID-19 test kits, and it will also be helping establish federal virus test sites across the country, but starting in New York City.
And while the FDA and CDC bypassed their advisory panels to make sweeping medical recommendations to the American people, they’re also now sending mixed messages on how effective the vaccines actually are against Omicron—the virus variant they claim they’re responding to.
The head of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky, told CNBC that the initial COVID-19 vaccines “may not prevent infection” from the Omicron variant, and added that early data suggests the new virus variant can breach current vaccine antibodies. She’s saying people need to keep wearing their face masks since the vaccines “may not prevent infection.”
She also admitted that the Omicron variant appears to have fewer deaths than previous waves—with only one being reported in the United States so far (which was in Texas, in a man who had other underlying health conditions). And another interesting piece of data emerged: the CDC estimates on infections from virus variants are based on virus species being collected through business and university laboratories. CDC officials are saying they don’t actually have estimates on how many hospitalizations or deaths are caused by Omicron.
In this live Q&A Crossroads host Joshua Philipp, discusses these stories and others, and answer questions from the audience.
Live Q&A: Biden Moves to Deploy Military on Omicron, as CDC Says Vaccines ‘May Not Be Enough’