Gridlock could delay COVID funds until fall — or longer

By Associated Press Posted on June 1, 2022

FILE – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., takes a question during a news conference following a closed-door policy lunch, at the Capitol in Washington, on May 24, 2022. The Biden administration foresees unnecessary deaths if lawmakers don’t approve billions of dollars more to brace for the pandemic’s next wave. Yet the push to provide the money is in limbo in Congress. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

By ALAN FRAM Associated Press

The U.S. is headed for “a lot of unnecessary loss of life,” the Biden administration says, if Congress fails to provide billions more dollars to brace for the pandemic’s next wave. Yet the quest for that money is in limbo, the latest victim of election-year gridlock that’s stalled or killed a host of Democratic priorities.

President Joe Biden’s appeal for funds for vaccines, testing and treatments has hit opposition from Republicans, who’ve fused the fight with the precarious politics of immigration. Congress is in recess, and the next steps are uncertain, despite admonitions from White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha of damaging consequences from “every day we wait.”