(WXYZ) — President Joe Biden plans to outline a new strategy to curb the delta variant in a speech Thursday.
In his remarks, the White House says Biden will lay out a six-pronged strategy involving both the public and private sectors.
The strategy is expected to focus on:
- Reaching the unvaccinated
- Further protection for the vaccinated with booster shots
- Keeping schools open
- Boosts for testing and masking
- Economic recovery
- Improving care for those battling the virus
White House Press Secretary Jenn Psaki hinted that Biden will rely on more major corporations to join in on issuing vaccine mandates.
The Biden administration has already mandated the vaccine for 2.1 million federal workers and the Department of Defense will require the vaccine for 1.3 million active duty service members.
Another focus on this latest COVID attack plan is keeping schools open and boosting testing and masking.
Dr. Molly O'Shea with Birmingham Pediatrics points out that unlike a lot of countries right now, vaccine access is not a problem here in the United States; it's convincing the thousands still on the fence to take it.
"Colder weather encourages being indoors more and these respiratory viruses actually circulate more in the winter," O'Shea said. "That combination does mean that we're very likely to see another worsening in the Delta virus...the COVID virus in general, and perhaps other variants emerging."
Here in Michigan, no broad mask mandate currently exists, though we've seen counties and individual school districts implement their own.
In a recent virtual town hall, the state's Chief Medical Executive Dr. Joneigh Khaldun hinted that more action at the state level could be possible.