If you’re an adult choosing to be unvaccinated, you will face an extremely difficult winter for your family and community.
Folks, Omicron cases are on the rise in the United States. I want to give you all a sense of where we are and what we know.
1. We know that vaccines are working. If you are boosted with Pfizer or Moderna, you have a high degree of protection against severe illness with Omicron. If you’re an adult choosing to be unvaccinated, you will face an extremely difficult winter for your family and community.
2. Omicron cases will increase in the coming days—even among fully vaccinated individuals. If you’re vaccinated and boosted, you may still get a breakthrough case but doctors say you will likely have no symptoms or mild ones.
3. We still need to take precautions and remain vigilant. Listen to the advice from doctors: even if you’re fully vaccinated, you should wear a mask when indoors in a public setting. It will help protect you and others—especially kids under 5 who can’t get vaccinated yet.
4. To our frontline workers, I am in awe of your sacrifices. Thank you for the work you are putting in on this wave after a painful and difficult two years. We owe you a tremendous debt. I am once again asking for your strength, and I’ll never forget it.
We are working around the clock to increase testing capacity, vaccine availability, and support for our hospitals. I’ll have more to say on this tomorrow.
In the meantime: Get vaccinated, get boosted, wear a mask. And keep the faith.
We’ll get through this together.
