Omicron: Biden's plan to provide 500m free COVID tests 'too little, too late', say experts

Experts have said that United States President Joe Biden’s steps to relieve the hospitals and distribute 500 million at-home COVID-19 test kits, are welcomed but the measures appear "a little too late" to stem the drastic surge of Omicron cases. According to The Guardian, health experts noted that the measures are delayed considering the surge of the new variant and over the holiday season with Christmas and New Year’s. 

Just a day after Biden outlined his plans, Anne Rimoin, a UCLA professor of epidemiology, hailed US President’s focus on testing as a “critical tool” but noted that the US was “woefully” behind on the same. She was quoted as saying, “Unfortunately, it’s late in coming and will be a small drop in the bucket compared to the tsunami of cases on the horizon.”

Rimoin’s remarks came after Biden on Tuesday unveiled a fresh COVID-19 Action Plan to tackle the surge of B.1.1.529 variant or the Omicron. Under the plan, from January, Americans will be able to request rapid tests of coronavirus through a website and will have them delivered to their homes without paying any cost. The plan was announced as the United States enters tougher winter months and his administration seeks to improve testing and tracing to stem the Omicron cases.

Biden denied failure in pandemic testing response

Meanwhile, it is to note that amid the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lack of momentum in the legislative process of his sweeping economic agenda, Biden’s approval rating has suffered a downfall. In the same interview, Biden denied calling the US response to the Omicron variant surge as a “failure”. However, he said that he regretted not ordering millions of free rapid tests of coronavirus for US citizens ‘two months ago”.

“Nothing’s been good enough,” he conceded. “But look, look where we are. Last Christmas, we were in a situation where we had significantly fewer vaccinated people and emergency rooms were filled. You had serious backups in hospitals that were causing great difficulties.” Biden said that his administration should have been better prepared to tackle highly transmissible variants. 

(IMAGE: AP/Pixabay)