President Biden is expected this week to outline a new “6-pronged” strategy involving the public and private sectors in order to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and the surge of the delta variant. Biden is set to deliver remarks on Thursday in hopes of controlling the resurgent pandemic, with positive cases and deaths increasing, while vaccination rates remain an issue.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said: “The president will speak to the American people about his robust plan to stop the spread of the delta variant and boost vaccinations. As (Biden) has said since Day 1, his administration will pull every lever to get the pandemic under control.” Biden will also likely address the issue of mask requirements in schools, with public health experts in agreement that school children, teachers and staff should all be ordered to wear masks to help prevent the additional spread of the virus. Psaki said Tuesday: “I will note that we’ve seen that there is a range of ways that we have increased vaccinations across the country, or vaccinations have increased. One of them is private sector companies mandating in different capacities that their employees get vaccinated. Or certain school districts mandate.”

Positive COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths are climbing nearly as high as they’ve been since the pandemic first surged in March 2020. Additionally, the full recovery of the economy is dependent on getting children safely back to school, adults back to work, and assisting retail businesses and restaurants.

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