Washington. The steps taken by the president of the United States, Joe Biden, to support hospitals and distribute coronavirus test kits, while welcome, are rare and late to curb the increase in cases of the omicron variant during Christmas and the New Year, according to experts.
A day after Biden presented his plan to distribute 500 million coronavirus test kits for home use, Anne Rimoin, a UCLA professor of epidemiology, praised his focus on testing, a “critical tool” in which the United States it was “woefully” late.
However, he indicated that “unfortunately it is late and it will be a small drop of water compared to the tsunami of cases that is coming.”
The tests promised by the White House as of January amount to just one or two for every resident of the United States. Households need a lot more to make daily decisions about their exposure, Rimoin said.
“We need those tests now,” he said. Testing in the United States lags behind the curve due to a lack of skilled workers, a dearth of home testing and a lack of investment in recent months, according to interviews with more than a dozen officials, healthcare providers and manufacturers.
Biden, a Democrat who took office in January, campaigned on the promise of taking control of a pandemic that his predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, played down as hundreds of thousands died.
Several academics criticized Biden for ensuring that schools and businesses will be able to stay open and that those vaccinated will be able to assemble safely without emphasizing the risks they face if they do not get vaccinated.
“He kept repeating, ‘Vaccines work, vaccines work,’ like a mantra, a talisman,” Gregg Gonsalves, professor of epidemiology at Yale University, tweeted, adding that Biden should have made it clear that the booster vaccine is key to protect yourself from omicron.
Mandatory vaccination
Ecuador declared the anticovid vaccination mandatory for the population from the age of five due to the presence of the omicron variant, the Ministry of Health reported yesterday.
“In Ecuador, vaccination against Covid-19 is mandatory,” the ministry said in a statement.
The mandatory immunization “applies to people over 5 years old,” the portfolio specified through its press chat on WhatsApp.
In Germany, the Lufthansa company revealed that it will cancel several intercontinental flights due to the fact that several company pilots are infected with Covid-19.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx