President Joe Biden on Thursday, December 2 asked businesses to voluntarily move forward with the administration’s Covid-19 vaccine and testing requirements, even as the rules are challenged in court, after U.S. officials confirmed the first case of the omicron variant in the U.S.
The administration’s request comes after public health officials in California detected the first case in the U.S. of the Covid omicron variant. U.S. and international health officials are concerned that omicron, which has roughly 50 mutations, could prove more transmissible than past strains of the virus and may evade vaccine protection to some degree.