últimas notícias

Mr. Biden also vowed to prepare for new variants, saying that if necessary, his administration could deploy new vaccines within 100 days of a variant’s arrival. He called on Congress to provide new funding for the administration to stockpile more tests, masks and pills.

“I cannot promise a new variant won’t come,” Mr. Biden said. “But I can promise you we’ll do everything within our power to be ready if it does.”

Over the past week, as top federal health officials have been debating the new strategy, they have been evaluating a 136-page blueprint by outside experts whose recommendations include stronger air filtration systems in public buildings, billions of dollars in research and a major upgrade to the nation’s public health system.

Titled “Getting to and Sustaining the Next Normal: A Road Map for Living With Covid,” the plan assumes that there will be fewer deaths from Covid-19 this year.

An average of about 66,000 new coronavirus cases are being reported each day in the United States, according to a New York Times database. That is far less than the average daily caseload of about 800,000 in January, at the peak of the winter surge fueled by the highly infectious Omicron variant. But it is still more than five times as much as the daily caseload last June, before the Delta variant drove a summer surge.

Even as Mr. Biden proclaims that things are getting better, large segments of the American population remain at risk. Children under 5 are not yet eligible to be vaccinated. On Monday, New York State health officials released data showing that the coronavirus vaccine made by Pfizer-BioNTech is much less effective in preventing infection in children 5 to 11 years than in adolescents or adults.

And an estimated seven million Americans have weak immune systems, illnesses or other disabilities that make them more vulnerable to severe Covid. The White House announced last week that it was taking several steps to make masks and coronavirus tests more accessible to people with disabilities.