U.S. Unveils Plan to Shift Focus In Efforts to Manage Covid-19

"Moving the U.S. beyond the Covid-19 pandemic will require vigilance for new variants, measures to prevent businesses and schools from shutting down, and continued global vaccine donations, according to a blueprint released Wednesday by the Biden administration.

The plan underscores the administration's shifting focus from responding to the pandemic crisis to a new normal that focuses on managing the disease. But the road map, the result of weeks of work with advisers, state leaders and public health experts, relies heavily on Congress approving billions of dollars in new Covid-19 relief funding.

The administration last month told Congress it needs an additional $30 billion in coronavirus response aid. The request includes $17.9 billion for medical countermeasures like antivirals, $4.9 billion for testing capacity and $2.7 billion to combat future variants.

It is uncertain whether lawmakers will be on board with a request for billions more dollars to cope with Covid-19 going forward, and some Republican lawmakers have already expressed skepticism over the price tag.

Lawmakers in March 2021 approved a $1.9 trillion pandemic response legislation that was signed into law.

White House advisers on Wednesday didn't say how much money they would ask Congress for.

The blueprint follows President Biden's State of the Union address, where he emphasized the U.S. has the tools to keep schools open and called on people to return to downtowns and office buildings.

The nation has been emerging from a surge of cases driven by the Omicron variant and new infections have plunged, with the seven-day average for newly reported cases in the U.S. at about 70,000 compared with peaks of roughly 800,000 in January.

"Covid need not control our lives," Mr. Biden said at the address.

Still, the seven-day average for deaths from Covid-19 is around 1,800, which some public-health experts say is too high to be dropping measures such as masking.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has eased guidelines on Covid-19 masking with new metrics which indicate about 40% of U.S. counties are in high-risk areas where masks are recommended, down from more than 99% that were deemed high risk before the changes." [1]

Let us just play the music and dance. That might save the downtown in each of our cities.

1. U.S. News: U.S. Unveils Plan to Shift Focus In Efforts to Manage Covid-19
Armour, Stephanie; Abbott, Brianna. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 03 Mar 2022: A.4.