President Joe Biden says the new Omicron variant is “cause for concern, not a cause for panic.” He went on to say that“ we’ll fight this variant with scientific and knowledgeable actions and speed, not chaos and confusion.” The director of the National Institutes of Health says it‘ll take weeks to figure out if vaccines are effective against Omicron. But he says there are good reasons to think it’ll probably be okay: “There’s even a bit of a report from South Africa that maybe people with this are milder than the usual case, but they’re mostly young people who have mildness anyway. So I would say we just don’t know.”
The White House’s holiday decorations are up. This year’s theme is “Gifts from the Heart.” The Office of the First Lady says it was inspired in part by the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic. More than 100 volunteers from the local area spent a week decorating the inside and outside of the White House. This comes as Hanukkah started Sunday night, earlier than usual. A rabbi lit the first candle on the national Hanukkah Menorah to mark the first night of the eight-day Jewish holiday celebration. Typically falling closer to Christmas, or at least in the month of December, this year Hanukkah started Thanksgiving weekend.
