US President Joe Biden will receive the Omicron version of the COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday and urged Americans to get vaccinated with the updated booster dose, White House spokesman Kevin Munoz said on Sunday, as quoted by Reuters.

As of last week, only 20 million people in the United States had received the updated COVID-19 vaccine.

White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre says that’s not enough. “We need everyone to come forward and get the updated vaccine as soon as possible,” she said.

Last week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that 4.5 million Americans received an updated vaccine last week, the largest weekly increase since the start of the fall vaccination schedule and about 40% more than the previous week.

In September, the United States began offering an updated COVID-19 vaccine designed to combat subtypes BA.4 and BA.5. Omicron and the initial version of the coronavirus.

President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 in July with mild symptoms and tested positive a second time during a relapse seen in a small percentage of patients treated with the antiviral drug Paxlovid. In August, he twice tested negative for the coronavirus and resumed public speaking after two weeks of isolation at the White House. (Source: Agerpres)