President Biden outlines steps to combat COVID-19 in winter

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Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani details President Biden's new plan to fight COVID-19 amid the Omicron variant and colder weather.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: I want to bring in our healthcare reporter, Anjalee Khemlani. Anjalee, you were listening to that speech, as were we. What were some of the key takeaways for you?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Yeah, I would say that President Biden really outlined what we had heard would be coming forth, which is those new restrictions, as well as the push to get more at-home testing available to US residents, as well as the push for boosters and vaccines. You know, he started off talking about hearing about greater uptake. And we have seen anecdotal reports of that as well, more individuals interested in getting either their first dose or boosters as fear of omicron continues.

Meanwhile, also looking at the global donations, that's been something that's been of particular interest to a lot of advocates and health experts who are looking at how to end this pandemic, highlighting of the fact, once again, that the US has been pretty responsive with global donations, looking at more than 280 million doses to more than 110 countries, including South Africa, he said. So all of that put together, really painting the picture of really a focused response.

But of course, light on details, and that has been one of the criticisms of this plan since it was teased earlier today. And the announcement now still light on exactly how a lot of this is going to be implemented, in particularly, the at-home testing part, which he did give us one new detail. And that is that insurers will be starting-- need to start covering that next month. And of course, those new testing restrictions for airlines and for international travel starting next week. So all within the coming weeks and months, focusing on the winter surge.