Even though the official emergency is now over, that doesn’t mean covid is going away anytime soon. I know three people who tested postitive in the past week! Via the Washington Post:
The White House recently received a sobering warning about the potential for the coronavirus to come roaring back, with experts reaching a consensus that there’s a roughly 20 percent chance during the next two years of an outbreak rivaling the onslaught of illness inflicted by the omicron variant.
A forecast from one widely regarded scientist pegged the risk at a more alarming level, suggesting a 40 percent chance of an omicron-like wave.
White House officials spoke with about a dozen leading experts in virology, immunobiology and other fields about the prospect that the virus would again develop mutations that allow it to evade protections from vaccines and treatments. Those discussions, not previously reported, came as the administration planned for the May 11 end of the public health emergency that was declared at the dawn of the pandemic.
One expert pegged the possibility at 40 percent. But of course Republicans aren’t interested in actually preparing.
The experts’ analysis was shared in a report among Biden administration leaders this spring, as they weighed how to wind down their coronavirus response team and set up initiatives intended to provide longer-term pandemic protections. Several of those initiatives — including a next-generation vaccine program and a program to cover coronavirus vaccines and covid treatments for the uninsured — are at risk as Republicans seek to claw back unspent coronavirus funds as part of ongoing debt ceiling talks in Congress.
Have Republicans ever spent money on preparation for anything when they can have tax cuts instead?
