Biden urges Americans to prepare for new Covid variants

President Joe Biden has urged Americans to prepare themselves for new coronavirus variants. In his first State of the Union Address, Biden said COVID-19 need no longer controls the lives of the Americans.

“We must prepare for new variants. Over the past year, we’ve gotten much better at detecting new variants. If necessary, we’ll be able to deploy new vaccines within 100 days instead of many more months or years,” Biden

The US President launched a new initiative -“Test to Treat”- aimed at helping COVID-19-infected people get tested at a nearby pharmacy and receive free antiviral pills on the spot.

The US, which is the worst-affected country from the deadly pandemic, has reported over 79,088,500 confirmed cases and more than 952,600 COVID-related deaths, according to the latest statistics from Johns Hopkins University.

Condemning Russia’s “premeditated and unprovoked” attack on Ukraine, US President Joe Biden today said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is isolated from the world more than ever.

The US President said that Putin rejected repeated efforts at diplomacy and thought that the West and NATO wouldn’t respond.

“We prepared extensively and carefully. We spent months building a coalition of other freedom-loving nations from Europe and the Americas to Asia and Africa to confront Putin. I spent countless hours unifying our European allies. We shared with the world in advance what we knew Putin was planning and precisely how he would try to falsely justify his aggression,” said Biden. “We are inflicting pain on Russia and supporting the people of Ukraine. Putin is now isolated from the world more than ever,” he said, adding that the US, along with its allies, is now enforcing powerful economic sanctions against Russia. Biden further said that they are cutting off Russia’s largest banks from the international financial system and preventing Russia’s central bank from defending the Russian Ruble making Putin’s USD 630 Billion “war fund” worthless. “We are choking off Russia’s access to technology that will sap its economic strength and weaken its military for years to come,” he said.

He further announced that American airspace will be closed for Russian flights, which will further isolate Russia. LiveMint