Congress is abandoning America’s responsibility to help the world fight COVID-19 and is putting the nation at risk, Biden administration and global health officials said Tuesday.
Lawmakers agreed Monday to provide less than half of the $22.5 billion President Biden had requested to continue the battle against COVID-19, stripping all spending that would have supported vaccination and care outside the United States.
“It’s a real disappointment that there’s no global funding in this bill,” White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said at an afternoon briefing Tuesday.
Global health expert Lawrence Gostin was even blunter.
“I think it’s a betrayal of America’s global health responsibility,” said Gostin, a university professor at Georgetown.
As the pandemic rages around the world, the virus has the chance to develop mutations that could make it more dangerous or less susceptible to vaccines and treatments.
“It’s very much against our self interest” to stop supporting global vaccination efforts, Gostin said. “It could really set us back to ground zero.”
Without the funding, Zients said, there won’t be enough money to meet commitments to help vaccinate 70% of the world by September, or to provide enough oxygen to treat COVID-19 patients or to maintain the genetic sequencing that can flag the development of new, potentially dangerous variants.
Supplying doses of vaccine is no longer the major challenge, said Zients, thanks to donations of vaccines by the United…
