President Joe Biden will announce a plan to deploy new federal medical teams to hospitals across the country that face a tremendous COVID-19 surge.
The news: Biden will likely deliver remarks on Thursday about the new medical teams, per CNN.
Where it’s happening: Biden will announce that military medical teams will be sent to the following hospitals:
- Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.
- Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn.
- Rhode Island Hospital in Providence.
- Henry Ford Hospital outside Detroit.
- University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque.
- University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey.
Quote: “These teams will be providing relief, triaging patients, helping to decompress overwhelmed emergency departments, and freeing up health care providers to continue other lifesaving care,” an unnamed White House official told CNN. “They will be working alongside health care workers on the front lines to give them the support they need.”
Why this matters: The United States is facing a massive surge of COVID-19 cases right now due to the highly-contagious omicron variant, leading to increase numbers of hospitalizations. Biden’s decision to send medical teams looks to help combat the surge.
However: Scientists have seen signs that the omicron variant wave will drop off in the United States and Britain, a positive sign for the future of the pandemic.
- “The variant has proved so wildly contagious that it may already be running out of people to infect, just a month and a half after it was first detected in South Africa,” according to The Associated Press.