WASHINGTON, May 13 (BNA) – The White House’s coordinator on the coronavirus, Dr. Ashish Jha, has issued a dire warning that the United States will be increasingly vulnerable to the coronavirus this fall and winter if Congress does not quickly approve new funding for more vaccines, the Associated Press reported. (AP).
In an interview with The Associated Press Thursday, Jha said Americans’ immune protection from the virus is waning, the virus is adapting to be more contagious, and booster doses for most people will be necessary — with the potential to boost protection from a new generation of shots.
His warning came as the White House said there could be as many as 100 million cases of the virus later this year — and while President Joe Biden woefully ordered half the staff to declare one million dead.
“By fall, we will all be more susceptible to a virus that has a greater ability to escape than it is today and certainly than it was six months ago,” Jha said. “This leaves many of us vulnerable.”
Jha predicted that the next generation of vaccines, likely targeting the currently dominant Omicron strain, “will provide a much higher degree of protection against the virus that we will encounter in the fall and winter.” But he warned that the United States was in danger of losing its place on the list of other countries if Congress did not act in the next several weeks.
Speaking of the need to provide vaccination assistance to other nations, Jha threw in urgency in terms of benefits to Americans, even if they have never traveled abroad.
“All of these variants were first identified outside of the United States,” he said. If the goal is to protect the American people, we need to make sure the world is vaccinated. I mean, there is no ‘local only’ approach here.
His comments came after he and Biden addressed the second global COVID-19 vaccination summit and lobbied the international community not to be complacent in tackling the pandemic.
Here in the US, Biden requested $22.5 billion in emergency funding to respond to the virus in March, but the money has been held up, first by the shock affixed in Congress and now amid controversy over the expiration of pandemic-era immigrant restrictions at the US and Mexico borders.
Jha said he’s been taking the case to lawmakers for additional funding for weeks, calling it a “very reductive request” and “the bottom line we need to get through this fall and winter without major loss of life.”
The Food and Drug Administration will meet in June to determine the specific virus strains that fall vaccines will target, and Jha said it will take two to three months for manufacturers to develop them. Currently, federal funding for the COVID-19 response in the United States is running out for new orders of vaccines.
“If we had the resources, we would have those conversations today,” Jha said. “The window really closes on us if we want to be at the front of the line.”
“I would say we’re kind of on that deadline and waiting a little bit longer takes us back,” he added. “If we’re willing to stay in the back row and get our vaccinations in the spring, we’ve got plenty of time. But then we’ve missed all of fall and winter. That’s not an acceptable outcome, I think, for the American people.”
Jha, who took over the task of coordinating the federal government’s response to the virus a month ago, described the celebration of one million deaths from the US pandemic as a “dreary” day.
“Each of these deaths is tragic, and many of them can be prevented,” he said.
Recognizing that “getting to zero will be a challenge,” Jha said that most deaths from the virus are now preventable, with effective vaccinations, boosters and treatments, often being the challenge to make sure they are available to people when they do. I need them.
“We have a lot of capabilities and we have to deploy them as quickly and with full capacity to make sure that no one dies from this disease,” he said.
Jha said there is no “viable alternative path” for now other than for the US government to take the lead in securing COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, rather than allowing market-to-market purchases as with other medical treatments. He pointed out the global mismatch between supply and demand.
“We have to keep the US government playing an active role,” he said. “This role will change over time. But for now this remains critical.”
“One of the things we talked about to Congress is that these tools are great — but only if you have them, if only you can use them,” Jha said. Without congressional support, it would be very difficult to continue to protect the American people.
On an international topic, he spoke about China’s “zero COVID” policy, which has led to dramatic shutdowns in some of China’s largest cities, disrupting daily life and contributing to global supply chain issues.
“I don’t think that makes sense,” Jha said. He emphasized that the US strategy is “very different,” with an emphasis on preventing serious illness and death.
“For me, this is a more sustainable long-term management strategy,” he said. “I think China will find it difficult to sustain this in the long term.”
AOQ