The White House has released the new National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan, a guide that solidifies the Biden administration's commitment to a return to normalcy.
The plan, released on the official White House website, outlines goals necessary for the United States to return to a pre-pandemic state of operation, includingcontinuing to promote vaccination and proper treatment for COVID-19 and funding research into investigating new potential variants of the virus.
The release of the plan comes shortly after President Joe Biden announced during his State of the Union address that he planned to shift the ongoing pandemic into an endemic. It also comes as negotiations for additional funding for coronavirus research and management was confirmed by the White House COVID-19 Response team.
"We look to a future when Americans no longer fear lockdowns, shutdowns, and our kids not going to school," the Biden administration wrote. "It's a future when the country relies on the powerful layers of protection we have built and invests in the next generation of tools to stay ahead of this virus."
In the plan, the White House boasted its vaccination campaign, saying that 215 million Americans have been vaccinated against the virus. Around two-thirds of the adult population of the country have also received a booster shot. The White House also stated that 21,500 free testing sites have been opened across the U.S.
"The path forward in the fight against COVID-19 is clear: we must maintain and continually enhance the tools we have to protect against and treat COVID-19," said the Biden administration. "Because we have these tools, we can begin to get back to our more normal routines safely and the use of public health mitigation measures like masking can be less frequent."
These testing and vaccination resources are not the only things that the White House aims to improve. The administration also vowed to improve case reporting and research across the U.S. in order to properly track COVID-19 trends, saying that the country was ill-equipped to do so before Biden took office.
"If new variants emerge," the White House said, "the federal government will leverage established playbooks to assess a new variant's impact on our vaccines, treatments, and tests, and rapidly deploy the tools, personnel, and resources Americans need."
Around 75,208 cases of COVID-19 were recorded from February 18 to 25, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—a 37.7 percent decrease from the prior week's report. The rate of hospitalizations has also decreased by 29.9 percent, with 6,060 hospitalizations attributed to COVID-19 being reported. Around 1,674 U.S. citizens died of causes relating to the virus during the week.
Update 03/02/22, 12:25 p.m. ET: This article has been updated to include more information from the National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan.
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