Some countries relax restrictions, anticipating omicron peak

President Biden is officially launching several high-stakes initiatives aimed at stemming the still-surging pandemic.

Americans can now order free at-home tests on a new federal website. The administration will soon start distributing highly protective masks for free. And private insurers are covering at-home coronavirus tests.

Some of the just-launched initiatives are ones public health experts had been pushing the White House to try for months, and this week is a critical moment for the Biden administration to put its new plans into action. It comes as Biden’s presidency hits the one-year mark this week — and his pandemic response is under the microscope.

LONDON — Before she met friends to go ice skating, Anne Bearne-Rolfe did a rapid antigen test for the coronavirus. It wasn’t mandatory, but she considered it a social courtesy.

“I think we’re just used to doing it,” said Bearne-Rolfe, 46, who works in local government. “It’s only polite to check that we are safe.”

After quick swabs, drops on a test strip and 15 minutes on the stopwatch, it seemed that she and her family probably didn’t have the virus. And so she met up with two other families to enjoy an afternoon of skating at London’s Somerset House.

The U.S. government is just beginning to roll out free antigen home tests. A website for ordering launched this week, with the first batches — four per household — scheduled for delivery later this month. But while up until now, home tests have been expensive and hard to find in much of America, in other countries — Britain, Singapore and India among them — rapid self-tests have been widely accessible for some time. And people have incorporated them into their everyday lives.

As the public health crisis continues to rattle college students, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and first lady Jill Biden are imploring schools to use pandemic relief funds to assist with housing, food and other basic needs.

“As I’ve traveled the country and spoken with students at all types of colleges and universities, I’ve heard them share heartbreaking struggles about finding safe and nurturing child care, concerns about not having regular access to nutritious meals, and fears about where they can sleep safely at night,” Cardona said at Bergen Community College in New Jersey on Thursday. “We can’t let basic-needs insecurity stand in the way of our students achieving their American Dream.”

The call to action comes as the Education Department is taking a three-prong approach to addressing the enduring impact of the pandemic on some of the most vulnerable college students. The federal agency is making $198 million available through a competitive grant for colleges that have been hit hardest by the pandemic, encouraging recipients to use the money to tackle food and housing insecurity, among other things.

The chairwoman of the Senate’s health panel on Thursday called on the Biden administration to take “immediate steps” to protect essential workers from covid, citing the continued spread of the omicron variant.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who leads the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, urged the Biden administration to institute permanent workplace safety standards for health-care employers, such as requirements to provide protective equipment, notify employees of potential coronavirus exposures and conduct visitor screening. While the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued a temporary version of those standards in June 2021, the agency last month said it was unable to finalize the standards ahead of a deadline and would partially withdraw them.

“[H]ealth care workers and the patients they care for continue to face a grave danger from COVID-19,” Murray wrote in a letter to Labor Secretary Marty Walsh. “… I urge OSHA to move forward with a permanent standard to protect workers in health care and health care support settings as soon as possible.”

OSHA also did not move forward last year with workplace safety standards for all employers, frustrating Democrats and labor unions who cite evidence that essential workers continue to contract the virus at work.

President Biden last year promised that his administration would take steps to ensure workplace safety during the pandemic, such as by using OSHA to review and institute necessary protections.

“He promised he would take care of health workers, but it doesn’t feel that way,” said Cathy Kennedy, a neonatal nurse who helps lead the California Nurses Association, told The Washington Post.

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen on Thursday said she believes the Federal Reserve and the Biden administration will be able to lower inflation during 2022 if the coronavirus pandemic is brought under control.

“If we are successful in controlling the pandemic, I expect inflation over the course of the year, and hopefully, to revert to normal levels by the end of the year, around 2 percent,” she said in an interview on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.” Yellen’s comments come as U.S. inflation hit 7 percent, its highest level in nearly 40 years.

The fast pace of rising prices defied many economists’ expectations in 2021, including Yellen, she said.

From consumer goods to rent, global supply chain backlogs and booming demand have put a strain on Americans’ pocketbooks as the pandemic has unleashed highly infectious variants, labor shortages and other hurdles.

Given the unknowns of the virus, the consequences of interventions aimed to lower interest rates could shake out differently as the Fed considers a plan for a gradual withdrawal of economic support. As of a Fed meeting in December, central bankers projected inflation will drop to 2.6 percent by the end of the year.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), who has challenged the Biden administration’s attempts to mandate vaccines for health-care workers and others, tested positive for the coronavirus, his office confirmed.

“He remains working diligently for the people of Texas from home,” spokeswoman Alejandro Garcia said in a statement.

Paxton’s office did not answer questions about whether he was vaccinated or when he was infected.

Paxton has staunchly opposed attempts by Biden to make coronavirus vaccines compulsory for health-care workers in facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid funds, troops in the Texas National Guard and staff at Head Start programs.

Since the spread of the omicron variant began gripping the United States, a growing number of public figures including lawmakers and governors have been infected in recent weeks.

Northern Ireland is easing its limits on gatherings and nightlife.

Officials in Thailand said Thursday that the country will restart a program meant to ease travel that was suspended in December.

And British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday that rules implemented to fight omicron in England, such as public masking and proof of vaccination for access to events, will lift.

Some countries are relaxing their coronavirus restrictions, hopeful that cases of the omicron variant will fall as quickly as they exploded last month.

From barricaded playgrounds to crowded beaches: life with omicron around the world

In Britain, Johnson told Parliament this week that “our scientists believe that the omicron wave has now peaked nationally” and that hospitalizations have flattened. The prime minister anticipated that mandatory covid-19 isolation periods will expire in late March and said he hopes to phase the rule out earlier if possible.

France is still in the thick of an omicron wave and reporting some of the world’s highest daily coronavirus case counts. But Prime Minister Jean Castex said Thursday that restrictions there would gradually lift — with mask and remote work mandates easing early next month and nightclubs reopening later in February.

Northern Ireland also announced that nightclubs will reopen with vaccine requirements, while proof of vaccination will no longer be required for some other venues such as restaurants.

Rick Noack contributed to this report.

An American Airlines flight heading to London on Wednesday turned around about an hour after leaving Miami when a “disruptive customer” refused to wear a mask, the airline said.

No one was hurt, and the Boeing 777 landed safely at Miami International Airport at 9:24 p.m., American Airlines spokesman Curtis Blessing said in an email.

Officers with the Miami-Dade Police Department escorted the passenger, a woman believed to be in her 40s, off the plane without incident. Argemis Colome, a department spokesman, said the passenger was not arrested and police treated the incident as a disturbance call.