Omicron news: Fauci tells US not to ‘freak out’ and Biden rules out lockdown as no cases reported yet

We’re closing today’s live coverage of the Biden administration’s response to omicron and the latest updates on Covid-19 in the US. Stay tuned with The Independent.

Federal employees who have not complied with requirements to be vaccinated against Covid-19 won’t face serious repercussions until 2022, according to guidance from the White House to unions, The Washington Post reports.

As of last week, 92 per cent of roughly 3.5 million federal and military personnel received at least one dose of vaccine, while another 4.5 percent had requested exemptions.

Federal agencies will offer only “education and counseling efforts through this holiday season as the first step in an enforcement process” and take no further actions beyond a possible letter of reprimand “for most employees who have not yet complied with the vaccination requirement until the new calendar year begins in January,” the letter says, according to The Post.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday that “nothing has changed on our deadline or our approach to the federal employee vaccine requirement,” adding that counseling has “long been our approach and our policy.”

Health officials have not yet confirmed that omicron is in the US, but governors of New York and New Jersey are preparing for its emergence. Three confirmed infections have appeared in nearby Ontario, Canada.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who has preemptively declared a state of emergency with the emergence of the latest Covid-19 variant, told residents that “we are not defenseless” and urged them to wear face coverings and get vaccinated.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said “we must be ready now in anticipation”, particularly because of the state’s proximity to major travel hubs like Newark airport and New York City area airports JFK and LaGuardia.

“I’ll be stunned if it’s not already in the US,” he said on Monday.

Governor Hochul has not implemented a statewide mask mandate but added that she is “keeping every option on the table” in preparation.

The spread of the highly contagious delta variant saw a surge in infections in New York, appearing to undermine progress while the state worked to combat transmissions with steadily rising vaccine uptake.

Biden and health officials have now spread the word that the US should not be panicking about the emergence of the latest Covid-19 variant, and have urged Americans to get vaccinated and get booster doses.

“We should not be freaking out,” Dr Fauci told told CBS Monday. “We should be doing the things that we know work when you’re dealing with a pandemic virus. It’s not the time to panic.

He added: “We should be concerned, and our concern should spur us to do the things that we know work.”

The CEO of Moderna has said that it would take months to create and deliver a vaccine targeting the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

But Stéphane Bancel told CNBC on Monday that a higher dose of the company’s booster could be available sooner.

BioNTech also announced on Monday that the company has already started developing a vaccine focused on combatting the omicron variant.

“We understand the concern of experts and have immediately initiated investigations on the omicron variant as well as the development of an adapted vaccine as part of our standard procedure for new variants,” a company spokesperson told Insider.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday that the recently announced ban on travel into the US from several African countries is not meant to be punitive but to give officials more time to bolster its defenses against Covid-19.

“The objective here is not to punish. It is to protect the American people,” she said.

“That delay is going to help us have necessary time to do research from health and medical teams, get more people vaccinated and get more people boosted.”

A statement from the Republican Party blames Biden for the spread of the omicron variant, despite ongoing attempts among GOP officials and right-wing figures and networks to undermine vaccines.

Just yesterday, Republican US Rep Nancy Mace promoted “natural immunity” on Fox News, then promoted vaccines on CNN.

The editor of right-wing news outlet Washington Examiner also appeared on Fox to blame Biden for lack of vaccine uptake. While there have been more Covid-19-related deaths in the US in 2021 than 2020, those deaths are nearly all among unvaccinated Americans.

A CDC study published in September found that people who were not fully vaccinated earlier this year were more than 10 times more likely to be hospitalised and 11 times more likely to die of Covid-19 than those who were fully vaccinated.

Canadian health officials announced on Sunday that the omicron variant has reached North America, with two confirmed infections in Ontario.

Ontario health officials Christine Elliott and Kieran Moore said in a joint statement that two people who recently travelled to Nigeria tested positive for the variant.

“We continue to urge the federal government to take the necessary steps to mandate point-of-arrival testing for all travellers irrespective of where they’re coming from to further protect against the spread of this new variant,” they said in a statement.

Ontario is rapid testing travelers who have been to South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe, they said.

Omicron has not been detected in the US.

Lockdowns and shutdowns are off the table in a forthcoming strategy for how the US will deal with any winter wave of Covid-19, Biden said on Monday.

The virus will be fought “not with shutdowns, not with lockdowns, but with more widespread vaccinations, boosters, testing, and more,” Mr Biden said. He added that the vaccines and boosters would remain “free of charge” to Americans.