they know more about this, so what you ll likely see the president come out and do based on what we ve heard from officials is come out and urge a sense of caution, a sense of awareness as we re waiting on the details and this also comes as the president is going to be speaking the day the new travel restrictions the u.s.cismenting for south africa and seven of its neighboring countries that s going to be going into effect. that s something that the president could also speak about, what was behind that decision that he made last week right after the thanksgiving holiday to put those measures in place which the white house has owe essentially shade is only a modest step. it s not, of course, going prevent the variant from spreading, but it will poe fencely help to contain it to a degree while scientists are still evaluating it, so that s going to be a big aspect of this as well. but we should note, john, one thing. officials are essentially bracing for the first omicron variant to be d
coming in over the next few weeks they do not any additional measures are necessary. by that the president said he does not believe fine this new variant is here in the united states there won t be need for economic lockdowns. he said he won t get in the face about governments without mask mandates but he said people should wear a mask when indoors and in crowded spaces. part of this challenge for the president is public health and psychology as americans hear there s a new variant spreading around the globe just before the christmas season. reporter: it was notable that the president entered the room saying he wanted to be honest with people about what we know and, of course, what we don t know about that. what he said is that on thursday he ll give a speech talking not only about the omicron variant but generally what this winter is going to look like when it comes to covid-19 in the united states. he says that does not mean any more lockdowns or shutdowns. he does not anticipate t
meantime sequencing these variants of the virus. there s president biden. good morning, folks. hope you had a happy thanksgiving. able to get together with your family and friends, and it was great to see so many families getting together this thanksgiving after being apart last year, and we have much to be grateful for as a nation. when i was elected, i said i would always be honest with you, so today i want to take a few moments to talk about the new covid variant first identified last week in southern africa. it s called the omicron. to their credit the scientific community in south africa quickly notified the world of the emergence of this new variant. this kind of transparency is to be encouraged and applauded because it increases our ability to respond quickly to any new threats, and that s exactly what we did. the very day the world health organization identified the new
economic growth in this country. we ve moved forward in the face of covid-19. we have moved forward in the face of the delta variant, and we will move forward now in the face of the omicron variant. thank you. may god bless our troops, and i hope you all have i ll be speaking before then but a merry christmas as we approach it. questions. should americans be worried, sir? let me call on nancy of bloomberg. thank you, so much, president biden. do you think that other countries will be reluctant to report variants or other strains given the travel ban that you put so quickly on south africa? no, i i i don t think so. i don t think that s what s going happen and i want to again, the reap for the immediate travel ban is there were a significant number of cases unlike any other country the few around south africa in the world. we needed time to give people an opportunity to say get that
people are protected first but vaccinating the world is just one more tool in how we need to meet our moral obligation as americans and how to best protect america s as well. the delta variant and now the omicron variant all emerged elsewhere in the world, and i can t let up until the world is vaccinated. we re protecting americans by doing that as well, and as we continue this effort let s remember where we stand. we re in a very different place as we enter the month of december this month compared to where we were last last september last christmas. last christmas fewer than 1% of american adults were vaccinated this. christmas the number will be over 71%, including more than 86% of seniors. last christmas our children were at risk without a vaccine. this christmas we have safe and effective vaccines for children ages 5 and older with more than