Inside the Biden White House's thorny response to the Omicron variant
CNN
President Joe Biden has spent hours over the last week peppering his medical team with questions about the quickly spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus, pressing them for more data and asking when his team would know more.
On Wednesday, they shared with him a major development: The first case of the variant had been detected in California, an occurrence they'd previously warned him was essentially inevitable. Now, he is preparing to deliver a major update to the nation on his strategy to defeat it.
The emergence of the Omicron variant a week ago has thrust the White House into an intense balancing act designed to prevent panic while still making aggressive efforts to mitigate spread of a still-unknown threat. Officials quickly determined they must present a carefully calibrated response, even while taking steps like restricting travel that have drawn outcry from some public health experts as arbitrary and overly drastic.