On Thursday, September 2, US President Joe Biden promised to accelerate the donation of vaccines to other countries against Covid-19 in the face of the expansion of the Omicron variant, of which two cases have already been detected in the United States. .
In a speech explaining his strategy for dealing with the pandemic this winter, Biden promised that his government would provide an additional 200 million doses to other countries in the next 100 days, that is, until mid-March.
“This will put us on the right track to provide more than 1.2 billion doses to the rest of the world (since the beginning of the pandemic),” Biden said in a speech from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) headquarters. , In English).
To date, the United States has donated more than 275 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to 110 countries, including 94 million doses to countries in Africa, according to the White House.
Yet the Biden administration has made sure to keep more than enough doses to vaccinate its population, which doesn’t completely overcome skepticism about vaccines: Only 59% of Americans are immunized with the full schedule, and 21% with a booster dose.
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The president stressed that he will always make sure Americans are “protected” before helping other countries, but said that donating vaccines is not only a “moral obligation”, but also works to stop the spread of new variants that could reach their country. .
The United States is doing its part, and we will do more. But this is a global pandemic and we have to fight it together. “This includes helping countries that are not particularly friendly to us,” said Biden, whose government, for example, has sent vaccines to Nicaragua, despite political tensions.
Biden thanked South Africa for notifying the world “quickly” of the emergence of the omicron variant, ensuring that the kind of transparency that allows for the pandemic to be contained should be “encouraged and applauded.”
The president also confirmed that, starting next Monday, the United States will require all travelers traveling to its territory to submit a negative test for the Corona virus within 24 hours before their trip, regardless of vaccination status or country of departure, before the new omicron. alternative.
After the first confirmed case of the omicron variant was discovered in the United States on Wednesday in California, an individual who had traveled to South Africa, Minnesota authorities on Thursday announced a second infection.
This is a Minnesota resident who traveled to New York City for Anime NYC 2021, attended by 53,000 people between November 19-21, who were vaccinated and had “mild symptoms”. resolved.
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