"We will fight the variant with science and speed, not chaos and confusion," President Joe Biden said today at the National Institutes of Health, where he unveiled his administration's winter strategy to combat the COVID-19 virus.

"This plan should unite us, not separate us," Biden noted before outlining the plan, which he said will keep schools open, maintain the economy, and get more people vaccinated without mandates.

The plan comes as officials in Minnesota and Colorado report the nation's second and third confirmed cases involving the Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant.

Expanded booster shot access

The crux of the Biden plan relies on expanding access to booster shots to all adults who are eligible, and ensuring they receive paid time off to get a shot. In addition, the president announced the creation of Family Mobile Vaccination Clinics, which will be active through December to ensure easy vaccine scheduling for families.

The president emphasized vaccinating children ages 5 and older as a way to keep kids in schools, and said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is working on developing new protocols for COVID-19 exposures in school, ones that rely on "test to stay," as a way to keep exposed children with a negative test in the classroom instead of quarantining at home.

Biden said the nation can expect a rise in COVID-19 cases in the coming weeks, because 43 million eligible Americans are still unvaccinated, and 100 million who are eligible for boosters have not gotten them yet.

The CDC COVID Data Tracker shows that 59.4% of Americans are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, 70.4% have received at least one dose of vaccine, and 21.2% of fully vaccinated Americans have received boosters.

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