{"id":156961,"date":"2021-12-24T10:32:15","date_gmt":"2021-12-24T02:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=156961"},"modified":"2021-12-24T10:32:15","modified_gmt":"2021-12-24T02:32:15","slug":"covid-19-us-pres-biden-denies-failure-in-omicron-testing-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=156961","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19: US Pres Biden denies failure in Omicron testing response"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u00a0WASHINGTON, Dec 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — <\/strong>US President Joe Biden has denied his administration bungled its response to the emergence of the Omicron variant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He told a TV network that “nobody” could have predicted it. His top adviser Dr Anthony Fauci has said experts did foresee variants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It comes a day after the White House unveiled plans to order 500m at-home coronavirus tests amid a shortage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been long waits for in-person tests as Christmas looms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I don’t think it’s a failure,”Biden said in a sit-down interview with ABC News on Wednesday. “I think it’s – you could argue that we should have known a year ago, six months ago, two months ago, a month ago.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Democratic president said he wished he “had thought” about ordering the 500m test kits “two months ago”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One year ago Biden lambasted a shortfall in Covid-19 testing under the Trump administration as “a travesty”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, New York City recorded nearly 29,000 new cases – a new single day record during the pandemic and a 30% jump from the record set earlier this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pressed by ABC on US Vice-President Kamala Harris’ remarks to the Los Angeles Times last week that the White House did not see Delta or Omicron coming, Biden laughed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“How did we get it wrong?” he responded. “Nobody saw it coming. Nobody in the whole world. Who saw it coming?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, the White House also pledged to open more testing sites around the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a briefing on Wednesday, Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki was unable to provide specifics about how and when the free test kits would be distributed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Sunday, top White House coronavirus adviser Dr Fauci dismissed any suggestion that the emergence of new Covid variants could not have been predicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We certainly were anticipating that there were going to be variants,” he told CNN. “Because when you have so much replication going on in the community, if you give a virus enough opportunity to replicate you know it’s going to ultimately mutate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“And sometimes those mutations become a new variant, and that’s what happened with Delta, and certainly with Omicron.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Biden also told ABC News that he plans to run for re-election in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But look, I’m a great respecter of fate. Fate has intervened in my life many, many times. If I’m in the health I’m in now, if I’m in good health, then in fact, I would run again,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden added that the chance of facing his predecessor, Donald Trump, “would increase the prospect of running”. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0WASHINGTON, Dec 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US President Joe Biden has denied his administration bungled its response to the emergence of the Omicron variant. He told a TV network that “nobody” could have predicted it. His top adviser Dr Anthony Fauci has said experts did foresee variants. It comes a day after the White House unveiled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":156962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156961"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=156961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/156962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=156961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=156961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=156961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}