WASHINGTON — As President Joe Biden pushes Americans to return to their pre-pandemic lifestyle, his administration is preparing for a new wave of COVID-19 infections in the United States in the coming weeks without major funding or essential tools in its arsenal.
Much of the administration’s plan for the next phase of the pandemic — when Americans can return to work and normal activities without masks, in most cases — has been based on the assumption that Congress will give them billions for treatments, vaccines and testing. But that money appears to be in jeopardy after Congress was forced to drop $15.6 billion in Covid response funds from the massive government funding package signed this week.
White House officials say they have no back-up plan for how a number of efforts will go unfunded and have already begun making cuts. Meanwhile, a new variable Called BA.2, which appears to be more contagious than omicron, it has begun to spread throughout the United States and has already led to an increase in the number of hospitalizations in Europe.
“We are somewhere between denial and delusional thinking,” said Eric Topol, executive vice president of research firm Scripps. “We must prepare, we should not get funding now, we need more funding which will hurt us badly.”
The federal government has already begun reducing purchases of Covid treatments, slashing shipments of monoclonal antibodies to states by 30 percent next week, and said a program to provide treatments and tests for the uninsured will run out next month.
For example, Pfizer’s new, highly effective treatment is still limitedly available, and a test for the treatment program is still being set up to allow people to get tested at a pharmacy and then receive the drug.
“We need the money. There are immediate consequences in the near term, we have to work on some of them this week, next week, the first week of April,” said a senior administration official. “So time is not on our side. We need funding immediately.”
On the vaccine front, the Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved a vaccine for children under the age of five, something officials once foreseen and will clear by the end of February. There is also mounting evidence that older adults will need a fourth dose of the vaccine after four months to maintain their high production levels, something the Food and Drug Administration is currently reviewing. But even if a fourth dose is allowed, the administration says it doesn’t have enough money to buy more stimulant doses for every American.
This week, the virus struck near the White House, where employees are no longer wearing masks. Second man Doug Imhoff tested positive on Tuesday and at a party on Wednesday night Biden briefly interacted with the Irish prime minister shortly before he was pulled from the event when he tested positive for Covid.
Outside the West Wing, there are indications that the United States is beginning to see a slight rise in cases. The number of new infections reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is down, but the rise in home Covid tests may skew that data. A third of sewage monitoring sites showed a spike in Covid cases from March 1 to March 10. The US did not see a rise in hospital admissions although in the past these numbers were a lagging indicator.
Even as the president has encouraged people to return to work and their normal activities, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised that most Americans can remain without masks, administration officials acknowledge that the country could be headed for another spike in the number of cases.
“Just because Covid hasn’t disrupted some of our lives in certain communities as it did a few weeks ago, that doesn’t mean it’s gone; and I think this alternative is an example of that,” said press secretary Jen Psaki.
There are indications that another wave may not be as fatal as what the country experienced over the summer because so many people were injured in that wave. But the administration is not expected to make any significant changes in its policies.
“The change now, at least unless hospitals are massively filled, is that it will be more of a situation where if you want to protect yourself, protect yourself. You have the tools to do that,” said Andy Slavett, who helped coordinate that administration’s pandemic response in Biden’s first year. With that, you have masks, you can do a test.”
Republicans Skeptical of New Covid Funding
White House officials have made dozens of calls with members of Congress to try to advance the funding, but Biden has not been directly involved in those efforts. When signing the funding bill, the money was initially supposed to be included in it, and Biden did not mention the missing funds and did not hold any meeting with lawmakers to pay them specifically for the money.
After initially agreeing to inject $15.6 billion in virus relief, Congress stripped the funds at the eleventh hour last week, in the face of Republican opposition and defections from a narrow group of Democrats, who opposed paying for it by redirecting some of the existing funds. Some Democratic lawmakers say that the party leaders did not manage this partial amount of their own.
“I would just say that if we had a conversation about it, I think it was very clear that this was probably not a strategy that would work, and that we would need to find other options,” Representative Pramila Gabayal said. D- Wash, whose state was counting on that money.
As a result, lawmakers are stranded with no clear path to the extra Covid money, lost their best way to pay it and now require a compromise that could win House Democrats as well as at least 10 Republican senators in order to pass.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was “extremely disappointed” by the decision to cut the funds, saying the $15.6 billion settlement was already insufficient.
“I think we need all the money we can get to get the resources we need to fight Covid. The last thing we need is another species,” Pelosi said. Transmission creates variables. The variables are different and they are there – if they are different, they present different challenges. So there is nothing to be tampered with.”
She said Congress must find a way to approve this funding, while acknowledging that lawmakers “will have to compensate” it and avoid increasing debt.
Republican senators are nice to this idea. Caucus leaders say they first want an account of how current Covid money is being spent. And they favor repurposing money that has already been authorized but not yet spent — a deal-breaker for some Democratic lawmakers whose states have made plans to spend that money.
“My view — and I think that is probably the view of most of our members — is that we had a chance to get that last week and the Progressive Wing in the House blew it up. The Senate Minority Whip, John Thune, RS.D., told reporters. He added:” Unless it’s paid for and it’s something 10 Republicans will vote for, it’s hard to see how it gets passed in the Senate.” “I think what our members will say is put the money back in there.”
“There are questions my colleagues have about where all of the Covid funding has gone,” said Senator Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, an expert and member of the party leadership.
Management should be quite frank: here’s what we spent money on, and here are the categories for which there is still money left. And whether it is distributed or not, it is adhered to for these purposes.” “And then how to make a legitimate case for whatever they think they need.”
Democrats also face political calculations. They control the White House and Congress, having won the 2020 election by vying to defeat the virus. The Covid situation has improved since the omicron wave, but some worry that if another variable hits this year, they will be blamed for its consequences — even if it is Republicans who withheld response funds.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y. , to a separate Covid relief bill, saying the federal government has “completely exhausted” public health funds in the US bailout and “should pass additional Covid funding” for treatments, testing and vaccines.
“Experience has taught us that new variants can retaliate if – if – we are not prepared,” he said.
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