“Nobody” could have predicted it, he said on a television program. Experts did predict the presence of variants, according to his top advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci.
It follows shortly after the White House unveiled a plan to distribute 500 million at-home coronavirus tests, owing to a scarcity.
Long lines are forming for in-person examinations as the holiday season approaches.
“I don’t think it’s a failure,” Mr Biden said in an ABC News interview on Wednesday. “I think it’s plausible that we should have known a year ago, six months ago, two months ago, or even a month ago.”
“I wish I had thought of ordering 500 million test kits two months ago,” the Democratic president remarked.
Mr Biden slammed the Covid-19 testing shortfall under the Trump administration as “a tragedy” a year ago.
New York saw a record number of around 29,000 new cases. It is a new single-day record since the beginning of the pandemic. And it is 30% higher than last week’s record.
Biden laughed when asked about remarks by ABC on US Vice-President Kamala Harris’ statement that the White House was not expecting Delta or Omicron last week.
He added that he doesn’t think he got it wrong as nobody saw it coming. The White House also opened more testing sites in the US on Tuesday.
A Biden spokesperson on Wednesday could not provide details about how or when the free test kits would be distributed.
Dr. Fauci said Monday that the appearance of new Covid variants was not unpredictable, despite widespread speculation among physicians and researchers throughout the world.
He added replication was going on in the community so it was anticipated that there will be new variants.
Speaking to ABC News, the US President said he is “definitely running again in 2020,” adding that he will “highly doubt” whether or not he’ll seek another term. Biden said that the prospect of running against Trump “would raise the chance”.