BIDEN UNVEILS FEDERAL SURGE FOR OMICRON — President Joe Biden will roll out new measures Tuesday designed to expand coronavirus testing and reinforce hospitals against an anticipated wave of Covid-19 infections that could strain the nation's health system once again. The administration plans to send thousands more troops and medical personnel to aid overburdened hospitals, set up FEMA surge facilities and prepare shipments of protective gear to hard-hit spots around the country, Adam writes after a preview of the president's upcoming speech this afternoon. A testing influx: The federal government is purchasing 500 million at-home tests that Americans will be able to order for free, a senior administration official told reporters. Those free tests won't be available until January, and the administration is still setting up the website where people can request them. Officials also have yet to settle key specifics, such as how many tests can be ordered at once. "We know we have the tools to get through this wave," the senior administration official said. Biden is expected to deliver a dual message today: If you're vaccinated, life can continue as normal. But those who aren't are putting themselves and the health system at grave risk. The stark warning represents a shift from earlier this month, when Biden sought to unify the nation behind a broader winter Covid-19 plan that he hailed as an opportunity to "put the divisiveness behind us." OMICRON ALREADY DOMINANT U.S. STRAIN — The new variant has rapidly taken hold in the United States and now accounts for nearly three-quarters of new Covid-19 cases nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The numbers: CDC estimates Omicron accounts for 73.2 percent of U.S. cases surveilled between Dec. 12 and 18, with the Delta variant now accounting for 26.6 percent of cases. That's up from just 12.6 percent of U.S. cases the week before. It outpaced expectations. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and other health officials last week said the expectation was the variant would become the dominant strain in the coming weeks, Ben writes. Internal HHS modeling was based on the assumption the variant is between three to five times more transmissible than Delta. Testing demand could potentially triple over the next two months, health officials have warned privately. CDC STRUGGLED WITH CASE TRACKING BEFORE OMICRON — Health officials say they can't efficiently track and contain the new variant because U.S. health systems still don't have accurate and real-time data, Erin Banco reports. It's been such a persistent problem that Biden officials habitually rely on international data — like early reports on Omicron's transmissibility, but even Delta and breakthrough cases — that some say is more reliable than the patchwork of information stateside. The CDC's data collection still relies primarily on state health departments that use a mix of often incompatible and outdated state systems to identify cases. "We're not tracking all the things that we need to get a handle on what's going on. It is embarrassing," said Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research and former adviser for the Covid Tracking Project. Frustration has grown. In interagency health and high-level White House meetings, officials have lamented that U.S. epidemiological data lacks speed and accuracy. That's fueled calls for pulling in global data, even as Americans questioned using Israeli studies to make a case for boosters. What's next: The CDC has doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to each state to update data systems and hire more staff. But Dan Jernigan, the deputy director of the CDC's Public Health Science and Surveillance office, said the CDC hasn't yet secured additional funding from Congress to continue improvements on states' data collection. | 
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