President Joe Biden wants Congress to pony up more money to fight COVID.
Biden told the nation that lawmakers have not provided enough funding to keep purchasing monoclonal antibodies and other COVID-19 therapies while he received a second booster dose of COVID vaccine Wednesday.
“We’re already seeing the consequences of congressional inaction,” he said, adding that without more funding, monoclonal antibodies will be start running out in May. Biden also said “preventive therapies for Americans who are immunocompromised,” could start running out in the fall and that “we’re not going to be able to sustain the testing capacity beyond the month of June,” without more funding.
White House Director of Communications Kate Bedingfield also said this week that the U.S. would not be able to provide second booster shots for every eligible person in the country without more funding.
According to a fact sheet released by the White House March 15, $22.5 billion in immediate emergency funding and other resources are needed to keep up the U.S.
COVID response.
Although COVID-19 rates in the U.S. have been trending down, the omicron BA.2 variant accounts for nearly 55% of cases in the U.S. In the U.K., a combination of lifted restrictions and waning immunity has contributed to a wave caused by this “more contagious” variant of SARS CoV-2, according to CNN.
As omicron BA.2 spreads in the U.S., Biden said the country is at a “turning point” in the pandemic.
“When I took office about 14 months ago, the pandemic was raging, the economy was reeling, and the deficit was soaring,” he said. “Most schools were closed. We didn’t have enough vaccines. The unemployment claims were sky high.”
COVID-19 vaccines are currently widely available in the U.S., as well as effective treatments and testing. Nearly all schools are open again, and many businesses have also reopened.
“Because of how we responded, we created more jobs last year than ever before – 6.7 million jobs,” said Biden. “And by the way, we did it while cutting the deficit — the largest one-year deficit reduction in American history. Say that again: The largest one-year deficit reduction in American history.”
To keep up the pace, the president believes more funding is critical.
“Congress, please act,” said Biden. “You have to act immediately. The consequences of inaction are severe. They’ll only grow with time, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”
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