President Biden unveils plan to prevent future COVID-19 variants from disrupting ‘new normal’

The morning after President Biden vowed in his State of the Union address to move beyond the emergency stage of the coronavirus pandemic, his administration unveiled a comprehensive strategy to usher in what many have dubbed “new normal,” and to prevent COVID-19 from causing mass disruption in the months, and years, to come.

“We look to a future when Americans no longer fear lockdowns, shutdowns, and our kids not going to school,” said the new 96-page preparedness plan “It’s a future when the country relies on the powerful layers of protection we have built and invests in the next generation of tools to stay ahead of this virus.”

“We know how to keep our businesses and our schools open with the tools that we have at our disposal,” said White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients. “Two hundred and fifteen million people are fully vaccinated. Two out of three eligible adults boosted. Multiple treatment options … including millions of lifesaving pills. Free at-home testing. Four hundred million high-quality masks going out for free.

“Because of this progress, and the widely available nature of these tools, we’ve reached a new moment in the fight with COVID-19,” Zients continued. “Today we are in a position to move forward safely and get back to our more normal routines.” Zients went onto say.

“We will reach a stage where further and further down to the point where some people call it living with the virus, some people call it endemic,” added Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. “And with all the interventions we have, I believe we are prepared for the possibility that we will get another variant, with regard to vaccines, boosters, testing, good masks and antivirals.”

The Biden administration’s new approach was praised as “comprehensive, forward-looking, well crafted” by Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who was head of the Food and Drug Administration during the Trump administration. “It focuses on key capacity building for future contingencies that’ll provide greater assurance we’re prepared whether Covid remains a low-level threat or takes new, more menacing twists,” he wrote on Twitter.

Biden’s plan included measures that experts requested for several months.

To “effectively stay ahead of this virus,” as Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, put it during the briefing, the administration will expand its surveillance of virus levels in local wastewater systems, which “can detect an increase four to six days before we can see cases show up in positive tests.”

The White House has said repeatedly this is not a plan to “live with Covid”, any more than Americans “accept ‘living with’ cancer, Alzheimer’s, or Aids.”