U.S. COVID-19 funding stalled as White House predicts fall tsunami of infection: Fortune

NEW YORK, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Two and a half years into the pandemic, the United States is still at war with COVID-19 and the enemy remains daunting, while COVID-19 funding remains stalled in Congress, reported Fortune on Wednesday, quoting Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the U.S. president.

"Congress's inaction on additional COVID funding comes as the White House predicts a veritable tsunami of infection this fall - 100 million new cases, which would more than double the number the nation has seen already - and a sizable wave of deaths," said the report.

"I and my colleagues on the coronavirus team from the White House are very concerned about the lack of responsiveness to our needs to both develop and distribute countermeasures in the form of vaccines, drugs, and tests," said Fauci.

The Joe Biden administration this spring requested 22.5 billion U.S. dollars to pay for next-generation vaccines, testing, and research efforts, among other pandemic countermeasures, warning that nearly all of the 1.9 trillion dollars in the American Rescue Plan directly dedicated to COVID-19 response had been spent.

Without new funding, the federal government can't afford a booster dose for all Americans, states will receive smaller allocations of monoclonal antibody treatments, and funds that reimburse medical providers for caring for uninsured COVID-19 patients would be cut off, the report quoted the White House as saying.