On Wednesday, the White House will unveil President Biden’s new coronavirus response strategy, a voluminous document designed to bring the nation into what some are calling the “new normal” even as another deadly option looms.
White House officials declined to discuss the details of the new strategy, but a person familiar with the plan said it would be made public on Wednesday. It is expected to address a wide range of issues, including the development of new vaccines and therapeutics, and how to keep schools and businesses open even if the pandemic worsens.
The idea of the strategy is to get the country out of the crisis and, in Mr. Biden’s words, to a point where the virus no longer disrupts daily life and Americans learn to live with it.
Last week, as top federal health officials discussed the new strategy, they were evaluating a 136-page plan prepared by outside experts whose recommendations include better air filtration systems in public buildings, billions of dollars in research and major upgrades to the national health care system. Officials also met with the authors of the plan.
The experts’ plan, titled “Achieving and Maintaining the Next Normal: A Roadmap for Living With Covid,” suggests there will be fewer deaths from Covid-19 in 2022 than in 2021. The administration has already adopted one of its recommendations, issuing new guidelines for wearing masks and other social distancing measures.
Mr. Biden has walked a fine line in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, one of the biggest challenges of his presidency.
With cases declining and the 2022 midterm elections approaching, he said in his address to Congress on Tuesday evening: “We have reached a new moment in the fight against Covid.”
But the president reminded Americans that the virus is unpredictable and that they must remain vigilant, while he promised to remain vigilant, preparing for the possibility of future options.
“Thanks to the progress we have made over the past year, Covid-19 no longer needs to control our lives,” Mr. Biden said. “Tonight I say that we will never accept life with Covid-19, we will continue to fight the virus like other diseases.”
The United States averages about 66,000 new cases of coronavirus each day, according to the New York Times database. This is far less than the average daily workload of about 800,000 people in January, at the peak of the winter surge caused by the highly infectious Omicron variant. But that’s still more than five times the daily load last June, before the Delta variant caused a summer surge.