The Biden administration has assembled a group that will prepare new countermeasures for the emergence of future COVID-19 variants and other pandemic threats, after the arrival of the omicron strain led to tumult in the U.S. economy and health care system.
The Pandemic Innovation Task Force, formed by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, or OSTP, will focus on developing vaccines, treatments, diagnostic tests and other tools, said officials familiar with the matter, who asked for anonymity as the details aren’t yet public. That will help prepare the country in case new versions of the virus surface, and for future biological threats beyond COVID-19, they said.
While some officials stressed the group wasn’t created specifically as a response to omicron, it begins its work as the variant fuels unprecedented case counts and hospitalizations in the U.S. Health officials have warned that new variants could pop up and once again shift the understanding of, and threat from, the virus.