周三，白宫发布了一份关于COVID的96页新计划，标志着疫情的一个新时代，该病毒仍在传播，但有望得到管理，以便美国人可以不受干扰地恢复日常生活。
美国总统乔·拜登(Joe Biden)周二晚上在国情咨文(State of the Union)中预演了这一战略，呼吁从下周开始在网上提供更多免费的快速检测，并在本月晚些时候设立药房诊所，向检测呈阳性的人免费发放抗病毒药物。
虽然辉瑞公司的COVID-治疗药丸(可将住院风险降低约90%)的供应有限，但拜登表示，将从3月份的100万颗增加到4月份的200万颗。根据该计划，全国各地将开设数百个“一站式服务点”，分布在药店、社区卫生中心、长期护理机构和退伍军人健康中心。
白宫还推出了一个新网站，可以在一个地方找到免费的N95口罩和疫苗，或者在一个社区查找COVID风险。
到目前为止，政府已经分发了4亿个N95口罩中的2.7亿个，并在拜登承诺订购的10亿个测试中提供了超过2.7亿个免费的家庭快速测试。
如果他们获得资金，该计划还将包括在全国范围内为长COVID患者提供新的设施，长COVID是一种COVID后综合征，表现为呼吸急促，大脑模糊，疲劳或其他症状。
“我们将在全国各地的社区推出新的卓越中心，为患有长期COVID的个人提供高质量的护理，并更好地了解他们面临的症状，”卫生与公众服务部部长泽维尔·韦塞拉周三在与记者的新闻发布会上就该计划表示。
该计划的另一个主要原则是为潜在的未来变化做准备。该计划承诺每年大规模生产10亿剂疫苗的能力，以便在出现侵略性新变种的情况下，新配方可以在100天内交付。奥巴马政府还誓言将继续努力在全球范围内提供疫苗，以帮助防止未来的变异。
白宫COVID协调员Jeff Zients表示，白宫已经开发了一个新的“新冠肺炎变种剧本”，以更快地发现变种并为它们做好准备。
最近几周，他们与疾病控制和预防中心、HHS和联邦应急管理局等机构坐下来，用新的剧本做应对练习，用不同的假设变量运行场景。
“无论发生什么，我们都做好了准备，”齐恩茨在周三的新闻发布会上说。
“该计划确保我们准备好部署人员和资源来快速更新疫苗。这些加速计划和流程将帮助我们实现我们的目标，即在大约100天内开发、批准和生产出更新的疫苗，”白宫首席医疗顾问安东尼·福奇博士在简报会上说。
CDC主任Rochelle Walensky说，在监测方面的新努力意味着CDC现在可以识别新的变种，即使它们只占病例的0.1%。
“这些强大的测序工作意味着我们可以可靠地识别非常低水平的变异，即使变异只占美国所有新冠肺炎病例的0.1%，”她在简报会上说。
总的来说，该计划主要集中在拥有足够的可用工具，让美国人安全地恢复正常活动，同时仍然与COVID生活在一起。
“两年前，我们保护自己的工具有限，大规模隔离和社会距离。但这一切都变了，”兹恩斯说。
“美国人民可以广泛获得它们，在国会的帮助下，总统的计划将确保永远如此。”
Shawn Thew，游泳池/EPA via Shutterstock
乔·拜登总统在国会参众两院联席会议上发表国情咨文
白宫已经承认，除了拜登去年推动通过的1.9万亿美元的COVID救助计划外，这些努力还需要更多资金。这笔钱大部分要么已经花掉了，要么是通过合同承担了义务。官员们还没有说总共需要多少资金，但政府已经向国会简要说明了短期覆盖需要300亿美元。
“这包括获得更多医疗用品的资源，包括疫苗、治疗和加强剂，维持该国的检测能力，投资...研究和开发包括泛冠状病毒疫苗在内的下一代疫苗，并加快全球疫苗的普及。
“除了眼前的需求，我们还需要额外的资金，以有效执行今天计划中的中长期优先事项和政策，”他补充说。
美国广播公司新闻上周首次报道了白宫修改其战略的努力，以标志着疫情的新时代。这一努力包括与商界领袖、州长和国家顶级疫情专家举行私人会议，以考虑病毒在未来几个月可能采取的各种途径。
在选民要求全面重新开放该国并遏制混乱的巨大压力下，更新了战略。民主党策略师警告候选人，他们最好关注控制通胀等其他问题。
但是联邦卫生官员认为这种转变不仅仅是政治上的。最近几周，病例数量和住院水平大幅下降，减轻了医护人员的压力。
官员们还指出，疫苗在奥米克隆浪潮中一直有效。医院中的绝大多数人都没有接种疫苗，而接种疫苗的人大多出现轻微症状，不需要医疗帮助。
White House signals next era in COVID with sweeping new strategy
The White House on Wednesday released a sweeping new 96-page plan on COVID, marking a new era in the pandemic in which the virus is still circulating but can hopefully be managed so that Americans can return to daily life without disruption.
The strategy, which President Joe Biden previewed Tuesday night in his State of the Union address, calls for making available more free rapid tests online starting next week, as well as setting up pharmacy clinics later this month that will hand out free antiviral pills to people who test positive.
While supply of Pfizer's COVID-treatment pills, which reduce the risk of hospitalization by about 90%, has been limited, Biden said it would double from 1 million available in March to 2 million in April. Hundreds of "one-stop sites" will open across the country to dispense the sites, located at pharmacies, community health centers, long-term care facilities and veteran's health centers, according to the plan.
The White House is also launching a new website to locate free N95 masks and vaccines, or look up COVID risk in a community all in one place.
So far, the administration has distributed 270 million of the 400 million free N95 masks it pledged to give out earlier this winter, and delivered over 270 million free at-home rapid tests of the 1 billion tests that Biden promised to order.
If they secure funding, the plan will also include new facilities around the country for people dealing with long COVID, a post-COVID syndrome that can manifest as shortness of breath, brain fogginess, fatigue or other conditions.
"We will launch new centers of excellence in communities across the country to provide high quality care to individuals experiencing long COVID and better understand the symptoms they're facing," Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said at a briefing with reporters on Wednesday about the plan.
Another major tenet of the plan is preparing for potential future variants. The plan promises the ability to mass produce 1 billion doses of vaccine each year so that a new formula can be delivered within 100 days in the event of an aggressive new variant. The administration also vows to continue its efforts to provide vaccinations globally to help prevent future mutations.
White House COVID coordinator Jeff Zients said the White House has developed a new "COVID-19 variant playbook" to pick up on variants quicker and prepare for them.
In recent weeks, they've sat down with agencies like Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, HHS and FEMA to do response exercises with the new playbook, running scenarios with different hypothetical variants.
"We're ready for whatever comes," Zients said at the briefing on Wednesday.
"This plan ensures that we are ready to deploy personnel and resources to quickly update the vaccines. These expediting plans and processes will help us reach our goal that updated vaccines can be developed, approved and manufactured in approximately 100 days," Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to the White House, said at the briefing.
And CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said new efforts in surveillance means the CDC can now identify new variants even if they make up just 0.1% of cases.
"These robust sequencing efforts mean we can reliably identify very low levels of variants, even variants that account for as little as 0.1% of all COVID-19 cases in the United States," she said at the briefing.
Taken altogether, the plan is heavily centered on having enough available tools to let Americans safely return to normal activities while still living with COVID.
"Two years ago we had limited tools to protect ourselves, mass isolation, and social distancing. But all of that's changed," Zients said.
"They're widely available for the American people and with Congress's help, the President's plan will make sure that's always the case."
The White House has acknowledged that these efforts will require more money, in addition to the $1.9 trillion COVID relief package Biden pushed through last year. That money has mostly either been spent or obligated through contracts. Officials have not said yet how much would be needed in total, but the administration has already briefed Congress on the need for $30 billion for short-term coverage.
"This includes resources to secure more medical supplies, including vaccines, treatments and boosters, sustaining the testing capacity in the country, investing ... in research and development of next generation vaccines including pan-Coronavirus vaccines, and accelerating vaccine uptake globally," Zients said.
"We will need additional funding beyond these immediate needs to effectively execute on the medium and longer term priorities and policies in today's plan," he added.
ABC News last week first reported efforts by the White House to revise its strategy to signal a new era in the pandemic. The effort has involved private meeting with business leaders, governors and the nation's top pandemic experts to consider the various paths the virus could take in the coming months.
The updated strategy comes after significant voter pressure to reopen fully the country and curb disruptions. Democratic strategists have warned candidates they would fare better focusing on other issues like controlling inflation.
But federal health officials defend the shift as not merely political. Case numbers and hospitalization levels have plummeted in recent weeks, easing pressure on health care workers.
Officials also note that the vaccine held up throughout the omicron wave. The vast majority of people in hospitals have been unvaccinated, while vaccinated people mostly experienced mild symptoms that did not require medical help.
