America is running out of resources to battle Covid. For months, a request by the Biden Administration to Congress for $23 billion of funding to restore depleted Covid programs and prepare for an anticipated winter Covid wave has languished in Congress.
Part of the request was for $5 billion in global preparedness. We know that the more cases overseas, the more likely the development of potentially deadly variants. Helping other countries benefits the entire world and is an excellent and cost effective use of “soft” American power.
That Covid bill is still not moving forward. And if it does, the global part of it will likely be eliminated and the domestic part of it cut to no more than $10 billion.
In the meantime, Biden requested $33 billion of additional military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Congress appears ready to approve $40 billion. Because $40 billion makes Congress look tougher than does $33 billion.
Initially, Biden had tried to combine the Ukraine and Covid funding requests, but that failed. And now Biden and Congress have acquiesced to passing a “pure” Ukraine aid bill.
I’m not arguing about the merits of continuing to support Ukraine.
Rather, I am arguing that our government’s first priority is to protect Americans. We have not come close to defeating the Covid virus. It continues to mutate and evade our protections. Thank goodness severity has become increasingly rare due to vaccinations, boosters, and prior infections. Yet, a winter wave of 100 million infections is well within the band of likely outcomes. The good news is that, barring a new, more severe variant, death rates may be similar to the flu at 0.1%. That would mean only 100,000 dead Americans.
(By the way, the current death rate from Covid is still at about 350 per day, which is 10,000 a month.)
The longer Congress waits to act in providing funding for Covid, the more risk we take in being unprepared.
The politics behind our government’s priority is transparent enough that I’m not going to waste either your time or my time discussing it.
There is one word that can sum up our elected representatives in their current approach to the battle against Covid.
Appeasers.
Ah David, do you not think that our government(Biden administration) has shown that any other life is more important than an American life. Almost every single thing they have done from open borders to the Ukraine shows that an American life is the least important of all. And omg, if that American happens to be conservative-well doesn’t count for very much of anything.
The problem is that right now there are no (Republican) votes to be gained by supporting more funds to fight covid, and certainly not to fight future variants that may never happen. Voting to avoid future catastrophes is way too sophisticated for the average voter. Plus, another wave of covid infections and deaths just before the midterms can happily be blamed on Biden, making America's descent into The Handmaid's Tale all the more certain. Add to that that a covid resurgence will likely knock another year or so off American life expectancy, which will let those who live pay less tax, so why would any Republican support that kind of 'reckless' spending?