COVID-19: Biden claims 'no federal solution for Omicron', admits US wasn't ready

Considering the skyrocketing number of COVID-19 cases, coinciding with Omicron strain, United States President Joe Biden on Monday stated that he would have undertaken more robust measures had he anticipated the dangers from the new variant. Speaking at a virtual meeting with state governors, he acknowledged the issue of the acute crisis of at-home COVID test kits the country is currently facing. Announcing free tests for those Americans who cannot afford COVID tests, Biden added, "We have to do more, we have to do better."

"We went from no over-the-counter-test in January to 46 million in October, 100 million in November and almost 200 million in December. That is not enough! If I- we had known, we would have gone harder and quicker if he could have," US President Joe Biden said on Monday, as quoted by Sputnik.

The President's comment came moments after he admitted that "there is no federal solution" to the ongoing COVID crisis. Speaking at the virtual meeting, Governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson requested Biden to not allow federal solutions on COVID response to hinder state response and emphasised that the earlier announced 500 million COVID tests kits for direct order "obviously dries up the supply chain for the solutions that we might offer." To this Biden touted, "Look, there is no federal solution."

"This gets solved at the state level... And it ultimately gets down to where the rubber meets the road and that's where the patient is in need of help, or preventing the need for help," President Biden said, as quoted by the New York Post.

White House drops plan of free COVID test kits to every household for holiday/new year

It is pertinent to mention that last week, the White House announced the purchase of 500 million COVID-19 test kits, which would be dispensed among all American households for free from January 2022. It was a proposal based on the 10-page plan pitched by experts at Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health, The Rockefeller Foundation and the COVID Collaborative on October 22, as per NY Post. The proposal called for the production of 732 million tests per month to meet the unprecedented demand for in-house test kits amid the ongoing Omicron scare. The Biden administration summed up to purchase of 500 million kits and dropped the idea to extend free tests before the Christmas holidays, with a significant WH official telling Vanity Fair that "we did not have the capacity to manufacture over-the-counter tests at that scale."

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