News Room

Flights are booked. Bags are packed. To cancel Christmas travel plans seems unfathomable at this point. But for many, so does the speed at which the omicron variant is spreading. The highly transmissible Covid-19 variant — which was first detected in late November but has since been detected in nearly 90 countries — is causing travel uncertainty around the globe.

As the omicron variant surges and COVID-19 cases spike, the Joe Biden administration is launching a number of initiatives in response: Military medical workers will prepare to help out civilian hospitals, new testing and vaccination sites will open, and the federal government will distribute 500 million at-home COVID tests for free.

A group of scientists funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is projecting the omicron variant may break pandemic records for coronavirus hospitalizations across North Carolina.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that over 77 percent of eligible people have received one COVID-19 vaccine dose, 65 percent are fully vaccinated with two doses and 32 percent have been boosted with an additional dose. Vaccines are weapons in keeping the virus at bay and preventing hospitalizations and deaths. 

To better reduce COVID-19 transmission, the U.S. must learn from Europe. Americans need cheap or free at-home COVID-19 antigen testing kits. According to medical experts, they give a result in 15 minutes and typically identify 98% of infectious cases. Getting millions of at-home tests to Americans is the most important action the government can do.