US Politics

US supreme court blocks Biden’s workplace vaccine-or-test rulesCourt says vaccine mandate for healthcare workers is validPresident to purchase another 550m at-home Covid tests The supreme court on Thursday blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a requirement that employees at large businesses be vaccinated against Covid-19 or undergo weekly testing and wear a mask on the job.Sinema speaks out against filibuster reform after House sends voting rights bill to Senate – liveRead moreAt the same time, the court is allowing the administration to proceed with a vaccine mandate for most healthcare workers in the US.The court’s conservative majority concluded the administration overstepped its authority by seeking to impose the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (Osha) vaccine-or-test rule on US businesses with at least 100 employees. More than 80 million people would have been affected.“Osha has never before imposed such a mandate. Nor has Congress. Indeed, although Congress has enacted significant legislation addressing the Covid-19 pandemic, it has declined to enact any measure similar to what Osha has promulgated here,” the conservatives wrote in an unsigned opinion.In dissent, the court’s three liberals argued that it was the court that was overreaching by substituting its judgment for that of health experts. “Acting outside of its competence and without legal basis, the court displaces the judgments of the government officials given the responsibility to respond to workplace health emergencies,” Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a joint dissent.When crafting the Osha rule, White House officials always anticipated legal challenges – and privately some harbored doubts that it could withstand them. The administration nonetheless still views the rule as a success at already driving millions of people to get vaccinated and for private businesses to implement their own requirements that are unaffected by the legal challenge.Both rules had been challenged by Republican-led states. In addition, business groups attacked the Osha emergency regulation as too expensive and likely to cause workers to leave their jobs at a time when finding new employees already is difficult.The vaccine mandate that the court will allow to be enforced nationwide covers virtually all healthcare workers in the country. It applies to healthcare providers that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid funding, potentially affecting 76,000 health care facilities as well as home health care providers. The rule has medical and religious exemptions.Earlier on Thursday, Biden announced plans to send 1,000 military medical personnel to hospitals and medical facilities, the president said on Thursday, as he announced plans to purchase another 500m at-home Covid tests.The military members will begin arriving in states across the country next week, amid a surge in cases largely attributed to the Omicron variant. This week a top government official admitted it was likely that most Americans would be infected with the coronavirus.Biden to meet Senate Democrats in bid to revive voting rights pushRead moreOn Tuesday the US recorded a record number of hospitalisations due to Covid-19 as daily infections soared to more than 1.35m. A test kit shortage across the country continues to hamper efforts to control the Omicron variant, but a silver lining has emerged, with signs that Omicron may be peaking in parts of the north-east.In New York City the number of new cases has flattened in recent days, the New York Times reported, while New Jersey and Maryland have seen a slight decrease in the number of infections.“Every case is one too many, but if you watch the trend line, it looks like we may be cresting over that peak,” Kathy Hochul, governor of New York, said in a briefing this week.“We are not at the end, but this is a glimmer of hope when we desperately need that.”Speaking at the White House on Thursday, Biden said his administration would double its order of home test kits, which will be delivered free of charge to Americans, to 1bn.The White House announced it would purchase 500m tests in December, but those tests are yet to be distributed.“I know we’re all frustrated as we enter this new year,” Biden said, as he noted that virus cases have reached new heights. But he insisted that it remains “a pandemic of the unvaccinated”.Biden said a website where people can request tests will launch next week. The president also announced that, for the first time, his administration was planning to make high-quality N95 masks, which are most effective at preventing transmission of the virus, available free.The 1,000 members of the military will help mitigate staffing crunches at hospitals across the country, Biden said, with many facilities struggling because their workers are in at-home quarantines due to the virus at the same time as Covid-19 cases have surged.They will supplement the more than 800 military personnel who have already been helping civilian hospitals since Thanksgiving, and the more than 14,000 national guard members who are assisting with testing and vaccinations.This week Janet Woodcock, the acting head of the Food and Drug Administration, said most Americans were likely to contract coronavirus.“I think it’s hard to process what’s actually happening right now, which is [that] most people are going to get Covid, all right?” Woodcock said.Biden also announced that six additional military medical teams will be deployed to hospitals in Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio and Rhode Island.The US leads the world in the daily average number of new infections reported, accounting for one in every three infections reported worldwide, according to a Reuters tally.TopicsUS politicsCoronavirusJoe BidenUS supreme courtnewsReuse this content More

Republican party signals plans to withdraw from US presidential debatesMove comes after longstanding complaints from party that non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates favors Democrats

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The Republican party has signaled plans to withdraw from traditional US presidential debates, which it claims are biased against it.The New York Times first reported the move, citing a letter sent on Thursday by the Republican National Committee (RNC) to the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD).The commission was set up in 1987, as a non-partisan body “to ensure, for the benefit of the American electorate, that general election debates between or among the leading candidates for the offices of president and vice-president … are a permanent part of the electoral process”.In the most recent election, in 2020, Donald Trump made headlines with an aggressive performance in the first debate, in Cleveland, Ohio.Make up with Trump or be a failure, Republican colleague warns McConnellRead moreThe second debate was cancelled after Trump was hospitalized with Covid-19 and the CPD sought to move the event online. Trump and Republicans protested that doing so would help Joe Biden.The final debate took place in Nashville, Tennessee as planned, with Biden widely adjudged the winner. A vice-presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris also went ahead, in Salt Lake City.In December this year, the Guardian first revealed the stunning news that Trump tested positive for Covid before the first debate but concealed the result, potentially putting Biden’s life in danger.Trump said that was fake news. So did his former chief of staff Mark Meadows – who wrote the book which contained the bombshell.The Times said the Republican move against the CPD was born of longstanding complaints that it favors Democrats, “mirroring increasing rancor from conservatives toward Washington-based institutions”.Among Republican complaints in 2020 was that the first debate took place on 29 September, more than a month before election day but after nearly a million votes had been cast.Trump and Republicans also complained about supposed bias among debate moderators – even from Chris Wallace, then of the conservative Fox News network, in the first debate.Trump remains favorite to be the Republican nominee in 2024.The threatened withdrawal from CPD debates, the Times said, followed “months of discussions between the commission and party officials”.Trump tested positive for Covid few days before Biden debate, chief of staff says in new bookRead moreDavid Bossie, a longtime rightwing operative with strong links to Trump, was reported to be leading the RNC on the issue, seeking among other aims to insert political representatives in meetings of the CPD board.Withdrawal will have to be approved at the RNC’s winter meetings in Utah in February, the Times said.In her letter, according to the Times, the RNC chair, Ronna McDaniel, said: “So long as the CPD appears intent on stonewalling the meaningful reforms necessary to restore its credibility with the Republican party as a fair and nonpartisan actor, the RNC will take every step to ensure that future Republican presidential nominees are given that opportunity elsewhere.”In a statement, the CPD said it “deals directly with candidates for president and vice-president who qualify for participation”, and said “plans for 2024 will be based on fairness, neutrality and a firm commitment to help the American public learn about the candidates and the issues”.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsUS elections 2024newsReuse this content More

Trump loyalists form alliance in bid to take over election process in key states‘Coalition of America First secretary of state candidates’ disclosed by Jim Marchant, who is running for secretary of state in Nevada Extreme Republicans loyal to Donald Trump and his “big lie” that the 2020 election was rigged have formed a nationwide alliance aiming to take control of the presidential election process in key battleground states that could determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential race.The insurrection is only the tip of the iceberg | Sidney BlumenthalRead moreAt least eight Republicans who are currently running to serve as chief election officials in crucial swing states have come together to form the coalition.The group shares conspiracy theories about unfounded election fraud and exchanges ideas on how radically to reconstruct election systems in ways that could overturn the legitimate results of the next presidential race.All of them backed Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election and cling on to power against the will of American voters. Several of the alliance have been personally endorsed by Trump and have a credible shot at winning the post of secretary of state – the most powerful election officer in each state.The existence of the “coalition of America First secretary of state candidates” was disclosed by one of the members themselves, Jim Marchant who is running for secretary of state in Nevada. A former business owner and Nevada state assembly member, Marchant has ties with the QAnon conspiracy theory movement.Marchant ran for a US House seat in 2020 and lost. He challenged the result unsuccessfully in the courts, claiming he was a “victim of election fraud”, in a mirror-image of Trump’s many failed legal challenges to his defeat.In an interview with the Guardian, Marchant said that there were currently eight members of the coalition bidding for chief election official posts, with more likely to join soon. He said participants included Jody Hice in Georgia, Mark Finchem in Arizona and Kristina Karamo in Michigan – all three of whom have been endorsed by Trump.Marchant also named Rachel Hamm in California and David Winney in Colorado, and said that further members were likely to be recruited imminently in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Several in-person “summits” of the candidates had already been held, with the next planned in Wisconsin on 29 January and Nevada on 26 February.All the candidates named by Marchant have been prominent exponents of false claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent. Finchem attended the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington on January 6 hours before the US Capitol was stormed.Hice is running for secretary of state in Georgia against the Republican incumbent, Brad Raffensperger, who famously rebuffed Trump’s demands in the 2020 count to “find 11,780 votes” that would tip the state to him. Marchant, Karamo and Finchem all spoke at a QAnon conference in Las Vegas in October.The disclosure that extremist Republicans dedicated to election subversion have formed a network was first revealed by Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist in the White House who is spearheading a “precinct-by-precinct” movement to inject far-right activists into local elected office. Marchant disclosed the alliance on Bannon’s War Room podcast.The revelation can only heighten jitters about the fragile state of American democracy. An NPR analysis of 2022 secretary of state races across the country found that at least 15 candidates have adopted Trump’s big lie.Jena Griswold, Colorado’s secretary of state and chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, told the Guardian that democracy would be on the ballot in this November’s midterm elections.“Extreme members of the GOP are taking a sledgehammer to our democratic system. The big lie coalition of candidates running for secretary of state has pushed election conspiracies, authored dangerous voter suppression legislation, or attended the January 6 insurrection,” Griswold said.The nature of the threat posed by the new coalition is illustrated by Marchant. In the course of the 2020 election, he declared that had he been secretary of state at that time he would have refused to certify Joe Biden’s victory in Nevada by 33,596 votes, even though the count was unanimously approved by the Nevada supreme court.Marchant was also an eager advocate of sending an alternate slate of Trump electors to Congress in blatant contravention of the official vote count. Asked by the Guardian whether he would be prepared to do the same again in 2024, by sending an alternate slate of electors from Nevada to Congress contrary to the actual election results, he said: “That is very possible, yes.”Marchant told the Guardian that were he to win election in November and become the top election official in his state, he would act swiftly to introduce voter suppression measures. That would include introducing voter ID – “a no-brainer”, he said.He would also eradicate mail-in ballots which have been extensively blamed by conspiracy theorists, without evidence, as a source of mass fraud in 2020, and open up election counts to “aggressive poll watching”. And he would scrap electronic voting machines – also targeted by big lie advocates – and replace them with paper counts.When asked for evidence that voting machines had been manipulated to benefit Biden over Trump, Marchant pointed to Mesa county, Colorado. He said that “a very brave clerk suspected a lot of stuff going on by people who could get to the machines” and found that “clear crimes” had been committed.In fact, the clerk, Tina Peters, was recently stripped of her election duties after she was found to have sneaked an unauthorized individual into a secure room where voting machines were stored in order to copy their hard drives. The stolen information was then presented at a conspiracy theory event organized by the MyPillow executive Mike Lindell, a major proponent of the big lie.The Guardian asked Marchant who was manipulating the voting machines. He replied: “I don’t know actually. I think it’s a global thing. The people in power want to maintain their power.”The near-universal dismissal of all court challenges to the 2020 election results, including his own case, was explained by Marchant as the work of corrupt judges. “A lot of judges were bought off too – they are part of this cabal,” he said.What would he say to the criticism that his actions and those of his fellow coalition members, like those of Trump himself, were the behavior of sore losers?“I disagree,” Marchant said. “We have a lot of evidence. It is out there. Shoot, you can find it.”TopicsUS politicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2024newsReuse this content More

Chuck Schumer outlines loophole to open debate on voting rights billA strategy involving a ‘shell’ bill would allow Democrats to evade an initial filibuster from Republicans seeking to block the debate Lacking the votes to change the filibuster rules that have stalled their sweeping voting rights legislation, Senate Democrats are pushing ahead with a new strategy that would utilize an unusual loophole maneuver to open debate on the bills.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer outlined the plan in a memo obtained by the Associated Press and others on Wednesday, on the eve of Joe Biden’s visit to meet privately with Senate Democrats about the path forward.Biden to meet Senate Democrats in bid to revive voting rights pushRead moreIn the memo, Schumer detailed a strategy wherein the House would amend an unrelated bill about Nasa to include provisions from two stalled voting reform bills: the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. After passing that bill, which they are calling a “shell” bill, the Democrats would swiftly send it to the Senate, where Democrats could start debate on it with a simple majority.This strategy would allow Democrats to evade an initial filibuster from Republicans seeking to block debate on the bill. Senate filibuster rules currently require 60 votes to advance legislation in most cases.Schumer’s maneuvering wouldn’t ultimately resolve the fact in an evenly split Senate, Republicans could still use the filibuster to block a final vote on passing the legislation, nor does it resolve the fact that two key senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, remain opposed to amending the filibuster.But the latest tactic could create an off-ramp from their initial approach, which was to force a vote by Monday on Senate filibuster changes as a way to pressure Manchin and Sinema to go along with the changes.“We will finally have an opportunity to debate voting rights legislation, something that Republicans have thus far denied,” Schumer wrote in the memo to his Democratic colleagues. “Senators can finally make clear to the American people where they stand on protecting our democracy and preserving the right of every eligible American to cast a ballot.”By setting up a debate, Schumer will achieve the Democrats’ goal of shining a spotlight that spurs senators to say where they stand. The floor debate could stretch for days and carry echoes of civil rights battles a generation ago that led to some of the most famous filibusters in Senate history.“I wouldn’t want to delude anybody into thinking this is easy,” Schumer told reporters Wednesday. He called the push an “uphill fight”.The move comes amid a significant week for the party’s push for voting rights. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris traveled to Georgia this week to speak out in support of the legislation. In a fiery speech, Biden called for changes to the filibuster and told senators they would each be “judged by history” if they failed to act.For Democrats and Biden, the legislation is a political imperative. Failure to pass it would break a major campaign promise to Black voters, who helped hand Democrats control of the White House and Congress, and would come just before midterm elections when slim Democratic majorities will be on the line.Schumer had set the Martin Luther King Jr holiday, on 17 January, as a deadline to either pass the voting legislation or consider revising the filibuster rules. It’s unclear if a vote on rule changes will still happen.Possibilities include setting a requirement that 41 senators be present in the chamber to sustain a filibuster.Manchin threw cold water on the hopes Tuesday, saying he believes any changes should be made with substantial Republican buy-in. And there aren’t any Republican senators willing to sign on.TopicsUS voting rightsDemocratsRepublicansUS SenateUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

West Virginians scramble to get by after Manchin kills child tax credits Without those monthly checks 50,000 children in the state the centrist senator represents could sink into deep povertyLast fall, Krista Greene missed a week of work after her sons were exposed to Covid and could not return to school. Greene, who manages a tutoring center and yoga studio in Charleston, West Virginia, does not receive any paid time off. Normally, she would have been worried about this loss of income. But the Greene family’s budget had recently become a little more flexible, thanks to the monthly child tax credit payments that began in July 2021.“The first thing I said to my husband was, ‘The Biden bucks are coming next week, so I won’t miss any bills,’” Greene said.It was nice while it lasted.Families probably received their final monthly payments in December after Congress failed to pass the Build Back Better Act. The legislation, the cornerstone of the Biden administration’s domestic policy, would have made the payments permanent. But one Democrat stood in the way – Greene’s senator, Joe Manchin.A week before Christmas, Manchin appeared on Fox & Friends and announced he would not vote for the Build Back Better Act, effectively poleaxing Biden’s plans in a Senate evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.“I have always said, ‘If I can’t go back home and explain it, I can’t vote for it,’” Manchin said in a press release after the television appearance. “Despite my best efforts, I cannot explain the sweeping Build Back Better Act in West Virginia and I cannot vote to move forward on this mammoth piece of legislation.”The announcement came after months of negotiations between Manchin and the White House, some of which involved the child tax credit. Manchin wanted to limit the credit to families making $60,000 or less annually. He has also said he will not support a permanent credit unless it includes a work requirement.The child tax credit was one of a number of Biden proposals that were surprisingly popular in the deeply Republican state of West Virginia – not least because Manchin’s constituents have benefited from it more than most.Ninety-three per cent of West Virginia children – about 346,000 in all – qualified for the credit payments. That extra $250 to $300 per child a month lifted about 50,000 of those children above the poverty line, according to the West Virginia Center for Budget and Policy (WVCBP).Now that the credits have vanished, so will those advancements. The timing could not be worse. Like the rest of the country, West Virginia is suffering a surge in inflation unseen in decades, a surge that disproportionately affects the poor.“The checks aren’t coming on,” said the WVCBP executive director, Kelly Allen. “Fifty thousand kids in West Virginia are at risk are dropping into deep poverty.”America got more expensive in 2021. Who is really paying the price? – a visual explainerRead moreQueentia Ellis is a single mother with three daughters, ages seven, three and two. For a while, she supported her family with a minimum wage job but found she was always coming up short. “It’s impossible to take care of three kids on a minimum wage job,” Ellis said.She decided to get a college education. The monthly child tax credit payments, along with child support and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), allowed her to stay home with her kids while taking classes full-time.“It helped me pay my bills and buy things for my kids that they needed,” said Ellis, who hopes to someday start her own business.With the monthly payments ended, Ellis said she will probably have to return to a minimum-wage job, which means it will take longer to complete her college degree. She will also have to find childcare for her daughters, which will cost up to $100 a month for each child, even with help from a state childcare assistance program.“That takes a toll on the income, especially if you’re working an hourly minimum wage job,” Ellis said. “I have to figure out what and how I’m going to go about making things possible. But where there’s a will there’s a way.”After announcing he would not support the Build Back Better Act, reports surfaced that Manchin was concerned parents were using the child tax credit to buy drugs.Bar chart showing most Child Tax Credit recipients spent their money on food, rent/mortgage and utilities.But the evidence shows that in West Virginia and across the country the money was spent on necessities – 91% of low-income families used the money for basic needs like rent, groceries, school supplies and medicine, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ analysis of US census data.“Families know what they need. In some cases, that’s putting food on the tables. In some cases, that’s paying rent. In some cases, it’s allowing mom to stay home for a few months, or paying for childcare because mom needs to go to work,” Allen of the West Virginia Center for Budget and Policy said.Hunter Starks is a single parent with a four-year-old daughter. Theypreviously worked as a social worker, while also working part-time as a political organizer, often logging more than 50 hours in a week.But things changed in 2021.“I’ve worked since I was 15, usually multiple jobs. And I’ve never had a hard time finding work like I did this year,” they said.Starks had difficulty finding employment because they could only take jobs with hours that aligned with their child’s daycare hours.“Service jobs and fast food don’t need folks during those hours,” they said.Starks said the $300 child tax credit payments were “the difference between getting by or not”.“And I still had to ask multiple folks for help,” Starks said.Starks said January’s budget will be tight without the tax credit payment, “but it’s been tight”.They will soon start a new full-time job as a paralegal, in addition to their part-time organizing work. While that will help their bank account, Starks said it will mean less time with their daughter.“I kind of hate the fact that I’m going to go back to working multiple jobs and spending less time with my daughter,” they said. “Even though I’ve struggled financially, I’ve appreciated having that time with her.”While Manchin has balked at the child tax credit’s price tag – about $100bn a year – the credits pumped $470m into West Virginia between July and December 2021 alone. Allen said that money was probably immediately reinvested in the state’s economy, since low- and middle-income families typically spend tax refunds as soon as they receive them.Yoga studio manager Krista Greene said that’s why it was so important the payments arrived monthly instead of once a year, at tax time.“It became part of your monthly income,” she said. “If a hospital bill comes around, I can’t say, ‘Can you wait four or five months until I get my income tax?’”Allen also said the money would have long-term positive effects on the state’s economy as well. Living in poverty has a deleterious impact on children’s health, education and future earnings.“If kids are lifted out of poverty and have access to more economic security, it pays for itself in the long term,” Allen said.Manchin’s office declined the Guardian’s request for comment.TopicsWest VirginiaJoe ManchinChildcareChildrenEconomicsUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

Fauci clashes with Rand Paul at Senate hearing as daily Covid cases soarThe daily infection rate hit a new record of 1.35m while 145,982 people were in hospital with coronavirus on Monday

Covid loses 90% of ability to infect within minutes – study
02:21The US recorded a record number of hospitalisations due to Covid-19, the Biden administration said, as daily infections soared to more than 1.35m. Nonetheless, politics dominated a Senate hearing on the pandemic on Tuesday, as Republicans attempted to use the disease for political gain.Covid live: France confirms record 368,149 new cases as Italy reports all-time high of 220,532 new casesRead moreRand Paul of Kentucky clashed once again with Anthony Fauci, Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser.“In usual fashion, Senator, you are distorting everything about me,” Fauci said. “You keep coming back to personal attacks on me that have absolutely no relevance.”Paul, who has repeatedly used public health hearings for political grandstanding and launching personal attacks on Fauci, variously accused the immunologist of working to smear scientists and being responsible for school closures, while reiterating rightwing theories about the origin of Covid-19.Fauci has been subjected to death threats and said his family had been harassed “because people are lying about me”.He held up a printout of a page on Paul’s campaign website, which had the banner “Fire Dr Fauci” next to an invitation to donate to Paul’s re-election effort.“You are making a catastrophic epidemic for your political gain,” Fauci said.He also described the arrest in Iowa in December of a man who police said planned to kill Fauci and other powerful figures and was carrying an assault rifle.“What happens when [Paul] gets out and accuses me of things that are completely untrue,” Fauci said, “is that it kindles the crazies out there and I have threats upon my life, harassment of my family and my children with obscene phone calls because people are lying about me.”There were 145,982 people hospitalised with coronavirus in the US on Monday, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services. Reuters reported that the previous high was 132,051, set in January 2021.According to Reuters there were 1.35m new Covid infections on Monday, also a record. Measures vary and observers point out that many home tests are not officially logged. But NBC News reported at least 1,343,167 new infections.The highly contagious Omicron variant has seen hospitalisations double in three weeks. The seven-day average for new cases has tripled in two weeks to more than 700,000 a day.Large numbers of Covid cases tend to be reported on Mondays due to many states not reporting over the weekend, but the 1.35m total reported this week comfortably outstripped the previous record of 1.03m, recorded on Monday 3 January.Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Vermont, Virginia, Washington DC and Wisconsin have reported record levels of cases recently.Only seven states have not set records for cases in 2022: Arizona, Idaho, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio and Wyoming, Reuters said.At the Senate hearing, Fauci was asked for an update on the effect of the virus on vaccinated people compared with unvaccinated people. He reiterated that getting vaccinated was the best way to avoid serious illness.Fauci said unvaccinated people were 10 times more likely to test positive for Covid-19, 17 times more likely to be hospitalised and 20 times more likely to die.As cases and hospitalisations soar, health authorities around the US are increasingly taking the once unthinkable step of allowing nurses and other workers infected with Covid to stay on the job if they have mild symptoms or none at all, the Associated Press reported.The move is a reaction to the severe hospital staffing shortages and crushing caseloads that Omicron is causing.California health authorities announced over the weekend that hospital staff members who test positive but are symptom-free can continue working. Some hospitals in Rhode Island and Arizona have given employees similar guidelines.In December, the CDC said healthcare workers who have no symptoms can return to work after seven days with a negative test but that the isolation time “can be cut further if there are staffing shortages”.In Tuesday’s hearing, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), clarified federal guidance. She said fully vaccinated people exposed to the virus do not need to stay at home unless they develop symptoms, but should wear a mask, get tested and avoid travel until after day 10.The threat of Omicron and number of new cases has led to an increased demand for tests, with long lines and shortages around the country.On Monday the White House said insurance companies will be required to cover eight over-the-counter at-home tests per person each month starting on 15 January.In December, Joe Biden said half a billion at home tests would be sent free to Americans, beginning in January.TopicsCoronavirusOmicron variantUS politicsnewsReuse this content More