State Dining Room
4:57 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Hello, folks.
I'm about to get a briefing from my COVID team on Omicron variant. And we got some encouraging news from Pfizer yesterday. Preliminary lab data has indicated — it shows that — that three doses of the Pfizer vaccine protects avents [sic] — protects against the Omicron variant.
And today, we've got even more good news from the FDA and the CDC: 16- and 17-year-olds are eligible for boosters.
So, my message is really very straightforward and simple. If you got vaccinated six months ago — and I say to all of you in the press as well, not a joke — I say to all of you: If you got vaccinated six months ago, get your booster right away.
We're seeing a lot more Americans do just that. Fifty million — fifty million people are — now have gotten their booster shots. And we're getting people their booster shots at a record pace — roughly a million people a day.
And America is making progress: 200 million with two shots, and more kids vaccinated than any country on Earth.
And we got — we got a lot of work to do, but we're going to get — we're going to get through this. We're going to make it through this. And we're going to be okay, in my view.
And I'm about to get a briefing from my COVID team, as I said. So, thanks. And I'm going to get the meeting started now.
Thank you.
4:58 P.M. EST
