WH COVID-19 response team: No new vaccine, no shutdowns for Omicron
During the White House COVID-19 response team briefing on Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said that COVID-19 booster shots work against the Omicron variant. And White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said that due to the availability of booster shots, there’s no need to lock down and that schools and businesses will be kept open.
Video Transcript
ANTHONY FAUCI: The Omicron variant undoubtedly compromises the effects of a two-dose mRNA vaccine induced antibodies and reduces the overall protection. However, as I showed on a prior slide, considerable protection still maintains against severe disease. The early in vitro and clinical studies that I mentioned indicate that boosters reconstitute the antibody titers and enhance the vaccine protection against Omicron, and so finally, our booster vaccine regimens work against Omicron. At this point, there is no need for a variant specific booster. And so the message remains clear-- if you are unvaccinated, get vaccinated . And particularly in the arena of omicron, if you are fully vaccinated, get your booster shot.
JEFF ZIENTS: We have booster shots for all adults. We have now a vaccine for kids age 5 and 11. That means we now have vaccines for 95% of Americans. We know how to keep our kids in school and our businesses open. And we're not going to shut down our economy in any way. We're going to keep our schools and our businesses open.
