With rising numbers of COVID-19 circumstances predicted this winter, President Joe Biden on Thursday appealed for Individuals to get their boosters and get behind his plan to sort out the brand new omicron variant by wider availability of vaccines and pictures, however with out new main restrictions on day by day life.

Biden desires to require personal insurers to cowl the price of at-home COVID-19 checks and he’s tightening testing necessities for individuals getting into america, no matter their vaccination standing. Whereas another international locations are closing their borders or reinstituting lockdowns, the president stated he wouldn’t right now impose extra clampdowns past his suggestion that Individuals put on masks indoors in public settings.

“Consultants say the COVID-19 circumstances will proceed to rise within the weeks forward this winter, so we have to be prepared,” Biden stated throughout a go to to the Nationwide Institutes of Well being in suburban Maryland after a briefing with scientific advisers.

He stated his new technique “would not embody shutdowns and lockdowns,” and he hoped for bipartisan backing.

“My plan I am asserting at this time pulls no punches within the struggle in opposition to COVID-19, and it is a plan that I feel ought to unite us,” he Biden stated.