Biden announces plan to mail half a billion free rapid tests to Americans next month

The Biden administration's new efforts come as the omicron variant became the most dominant COVID-19 strain in the country Monday.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced a plan to distribute 500 million free at-home rapid tests to Americans beginning in January, doubling down on an effort to slow the spread of a highly transmissible variant that has hit the U.S. distressingly close to the holidays.

But he denied it was a failure not to have more tests already available as Americans wanted to get checked days before family gatherings.

"I want to start by acknowledging how tired, worried and frustrated I know you are," Biden began in his address to the nation from the White House. "For many of you, this will be the first or even the second Christmas, we look across the table to see an empty kitchen chair."

"If you're not fully vaccinated, you have good reason to be concerned," Biden went on, talking about the omicron variant, now the dominant strain in the U.S. "Almost everyone who has died from COVID-19 in the past many months has been unvaccinated. Unvaccinated."