(CNN) 总统乔·拜登 (Joe Biden) 的高级卫生官员星期四在白宫参加了下午的简报会，并提出了警告和请求。
拜登坐在长长的会议桌前，周围环绕着他的 Covid 应对团队的高级成员，当官员们勾勒出迫在眉睫的冠状病毒激增的轮廓时，拜登仔细聆听，这种激增可能会迅速加速、淹没医院并使该国进入另一个寒冷的冬天。
然而，拜登的团队也带着可能更积极的消息来到了常青树装饰的罗斯福房间：其中许多病例在接种疫苗的人中仍将保持轻微甚至无症状——尤其是那些接种过加强针的人。
据知情人士透露，这是官员敦促拜登以最明确的方式向公众传达的信息。只有通过列出接种疫苗和未接种疫苗的感染结果之间的明显差异，才能说明这一刻的严重性。
因此，拜登和他的团队——包括安东尼·福奇博士、美国国立卫生研究院的两位顶级疫苗专家、白宫应对新冠肺炎疫情的协调员杰夫·齐恩斯和他的副手娜塔莉·奎利安——开始着手写下他的严重警告。稍后会在摄像机被引入房间时交付。
拜登一开场就宣布他想向美国人民传达“直接信息”。
“对于未接种疫苗的人，我们正在为未接种疫苗的人度过一个重病和死亡的冬天——他们自己、他们的家人和医院很快就会不堪重负。但有一个好消息：如果你接种了疫苗并且你有助推器被击中，你免受重病和死亡，”总统说。
他事先已经确定，如果他之后回答任何问题，他的信息就会变得混乱，所以他一反常态地坐在那里，记者在他们出去的路上匆匆忙忙地给他打电话。
Omicron 变体的出现将整个国家——以及白宫——推回到不确定的大流行现实中，对一位最终成功几乎完全取决于他控制病毒能力的领导人构成了公共卫生和政治挑战。
该国某些地区的病例和住院人数已经激增，导致病例数比两周前增加了 31%，住院人数增加了 20%。
然而，拜登和他的团队几乎排除了新的封锁，而在幕后，政府官员一直在讨论如何将公众的注意力从病例总数——似乎可能会激增，即使许多是温和的——转移到导致卫生系统超负荷并导致正常生活中断的严重感染数量。
Biden admin eyes a potentially stark shift in messaging around ending the pandemic
(CNN)President Joe Biden's top health officials came to an afternoon briefing at the White House Thursday with a warning -- and a request.
Sitting at the head of his long conference table surrounded by top members of his Covid response team, Biden listened intently as the officials laid out the contours of a looming coronavirus surge that could accelerate rapidly, swamp hospitals and send the country into another bleak winter.
Yet Biden's team also came to the evergreen-bedecked Roosevelt Room with potentially more positive news: Many of those cases will remain mild or even asymptomatic in vaccinated people -- particularly those who have gotten booster shots.
It was a message the officials urged Biden to deliver to the public in the clearest terms possible, according to people familiar with the session. Only by laying out the stark difference in outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated infections could the gravity of the moment come through.
So Biden and his team -- which included Dr. Anthony Fauci, two top vaccine experts from the National Institutes of Health, White House Covid response coordinator Jeff Zients and his deputy Natalie Quillian -- set to work writing out by hand the grave warning he would deliver later when cameras were ushered into the room.
Biden opened his appearance by declaring he wanted to deliver a "direct message" to the American people.
"For the unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated -- for themselves, their families and the hospitals they'll soon overwhelm. But there's good news: If you're vaccinated and you have your booster shot, you're protected from severe illness and death," the President said.
He'd determined ahead of time that his message would be muddled if he answered any questions afterward, so he sat uncharacteristically silent as reporters peppered him on their way out.
The emergence of the Omicron variant has thrust the nation -- and the White House -- back into an uncertain pandemic reality, posing both public health and political challenges for a leader whose ultimate success depends almost entirely on his ability to contain the virus.
Already, cases and hospitalizations are surging in some parts of the country, leading to a 31% increase in cases and a 20% increase in hospitalizations from two weeks ago.
Yet Biden and his team have all but ruled out new lockdowns, and behind the scenes, administration officials have been debating how to shift public attention from the total number of cases -- which appear likely to surge, even if many are mild -- toward the number of severe infections that are overloading health systems and causing interruptions to normal life.
