Plus, any foreign national who travels to the US must be fully vaccinated, though there is no vaccination requirement for American citizens for air travel, either globally or domestically. Previously a test could be taken up to three days before entering the country. “Just as I said and I’ll say it again, if you have a vaccinated situation, enjoy the holidays with your family in a family setting,” said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, at a CNN Global Town Hall.įor international travelers, proof of a negative Covid-19 test within one day of departure for the US will be required as of Monday, the Biden administration announced Thursday. Anthony Fauci said earlier this week that traveling during the holidays is OK – but getting vaccinated and boosted are a must. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Imagesĭr. Sanjay Gupta.Ī medical worker seals a test tube with a Covid-19 nasal swab at the Dignity Health-GoHealth Urgent Care testing site in the international terminal at San Francisco International Airport in California, on December 2, 2021. And those are very likely to work against the Omicron variant,” Walensky told CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. “We know what we need to do against Delta, and that is get vaccinated, get boosted if you’re eligible and continue all of those prevention measures, including masking. While the Omicron variant has the potential to become the dominant strain in the US, the Delta variant continues to show up in 99.9% of coronavirus cases, according to Dr. Just under 60% of the total US population is fully vaccinated and nearly 23% of those have received a booster, according to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).ĭelta remains the dominant strain in the world The surgeon general stressed that even though there’s a lot to learn about the new variant, mitigation efforts, including masks and hand hygiene combined with physical distancing, remain effective in providing some protection. We have far more tests available, and what we’ve got to do to get through this winter is to make sure that we are doubling down on our vaccination strategy,” Murthy told CNN. “We are in such a different place now than we were one year ago because we’ve learned a lot more. What the Omicron variant means for the holidays The free voluntary tests are being offered to arriving passengers in the Tom Bradley International Terminal by the Los Angeles County Department of Health after the county confirmed its first case of the Omicron variant December 2. People who arrived on international flights wait to be tested on the first day of a new rapid COVID-19 testing site for arriving international passengers at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on Decemin Los Angeles, California. Still, the US is more equipped now to deal with the newly detected variant than it was during the onset of the pandemic, US Surgeon General Dr. Scientists are working to determine the severity and transmissibility of Omicron – but that could take weeks, officials have said. The Omicron variant has been alarming officials because early indications show it could be more contagious than the original strain, and the significant number of mutations it carries poses a potential risk of reducing some of the effectiveness the current vaccines provide. The first case was found in California on Wednesday, and by the weekend the variant had been identified in 15 other states: Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin. The vast majority of new cases in the US continue to be from the Delta variant, but US health officials have detected the new Omicron coronavirus variant in at least 16 states as of Saturday. Average daily deaths haven’t been this high in more than a month. Omicron variant cases identified in at least 12 states but Delta still dominatesĪlso on the rise is the number of Covid-19 deaths, with a seven-day average of 1,651 people dying from the virus each day as of Saturday, the JHU data showed. recorded its first confirmed case of the omicron variant, doctors across the country are experiencing a more imminent crisis with a delta variant that is sending record numbers of people to the hospital in New England and the Midwest. 2, 2021, at a mobile vaccination clinic in Worcester, Mass. Manjul Shukla transfers Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine into a syringe, Thursday, Dec.
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