COVID-19 Update

WaPo: (freebie)

Biden to detail ‘surge’ of military medical teams to hospitals in 6 states

President Biden will announce Thursday that the federal government is deploying additional medical teams to six states — New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Michigan and New Mexico — to help hospitals struggling to respond to the spike in cases of the omicron coronavirus variant, according to a White House official.

It’s one of the actions Biden plans to highlight in a speech from the White House complex on the administration’s “whole of government covid-19 surge response,” much of which is already underway. He is slated to be joined by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell.

The Biden administration will deploy 1,000 military personnel, arriving next week at hospitals across the country, to “enhance surge efforts,” according to the White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the president’s remarks.

Criswell told CNN the teams would primarily consist of nurses and physicians to “provide critical support to help relieve some of the drain and the strain on the health-care system” to fight the pandemic.

Since Thanksgiving, more than 800 military and other federal emergency personnel have already been deployed to 24 states, tribes and territories, the official said. That includes more than 350 military doctors, nurses and medics helping staff hospitals.

Here’s what to know

• The omicron variant’s surge seems to be slowing in some East Coast cities, health officials and epidemiologists say, following promising trajectories in other countries.
• The White House is promising to provide 10 million free coronavirus tests each month for schools, aiming to help maintain in-person classes at a time when at-home tests have been hard to come by.
• University enrollment fell again in the fall, a new report has found, prompting worries that pandemic declines could become an enduring trend.